I don't think the people who wanted mass deportations are going to be fooled; they will be disappointed, and that might be a bad thing for long-term stability - I largely vibe with the narrative that most of the populist uprising in the West is tied to mass immigration (in the US's case, illegal immigration). I do, however, believe the average American was more concerned with securing the border and deporting violent illegals than with the promised mass deportations. Moving forward, it's going to be a question of whether or not ICE has gone too far for those voters imo
Agreed. The average American definitely places greater importance on the deportation of dangerous criminals and on securing the border than on the deportation of illegal aliens who have behaved well and non-criminally since arriving in the US.
The big issue is that amnesty for this group would create a massive precedent and incentive for further illegal immigration. Hence, amnesty is a political nonstarter unless the average voter can be sure that it truly is a one-off and that the border will remain tightly controlled in the future. And this confindence cannot exist until there is a broad, society-wide consensus that illegal immigration is not tolerable and that the floodgates shall remain shut. We're lightyears away from this kind of political consensus; on the contrary, Democrats are more or less openly embracing wide-open borders and continue to trend further to the left on the issue. Plus, the Republican donor class also lowkey favors mass immigration, so voters can't fully trust the GOP on the issue either.
So as a result, the immigration issue is currently stuck in a cycle of pernicious polarization in which the two sides of the debate cannot meet in the middle because the required trust doesn't exist and instead radicalize each other.