Enforcement flashpoints

Enforcement operations themselves became flashpoints. Throughout the fiscal year 2025, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement significantly expanded its enforcement efforts, with daily arrests averaging over 800 in recent months, roughly double to triple the levels seen in 2021-24.

By the end of September 2025, immigration judges issued a record nearly 500,000 removal orders, including voluntary departures, representing a sharp increase of about 57 percent over the previous fiscal year.

On Dec 3, the US administration paused all green card, citizenship, and asylum processing for applicants from 19 banned countries. This halt has drawn sharp criticism from immigrant rights groups, including warnings of potential humanitarian disruptions and widespread delays for affected individuals.

Legal pushbacks against the administration's immigration enforcement expansions were swift throughout 2025.

On Nov 22, the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit denied the government's request to reinstate its expanded expedited removal policy, upholding a lower court injunction that found the procedures violated due process protections. This decision effectively froze a key initiative aimed at accelerating deportations for certain migrants.

In a related ruling earlier this year, on May 30, the Supreme Court allowed the administration to temporarily pause a humanitarian parole program that had permitted nearly half a million migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to enter the US, signaling potential escalation in enforcement while leaving thousands in limbo pending full resolution.

In mid-November 2025, a high-profile immigration enforcement operation in Charlotte, North Carolina, attracted national attention.

This included incidents where masked federal agents briefly entered the grounds of the prestigious Myers Park Country Club without prior permission, detaining an employee who was later released after presenting valid documentation.

Local Republican officials, generally supportive of strict enforcement, expressed concern over the optics and execution of these raids. Former governor Pat McCrory warned that the "apparent disjointed implementation of arrest" could erode public support for immigration policies, even among those favoring stronger borders.

Similar enforcement actions were seen across multiple US cities in 2025, including Home Depot parking lots in Phoenix, Arizona, in late October and early November; and residential neighborhoods in Los Angeles, California, throughout June.

Various locations in Austin, Texas, in mid-June — drew condemnations, small-scale protests, and candlelight vigils.

Community leaders in these areas reported heightened fear among immigrant families, with workers avoiding job sites and residents limiting public activities due to the raids.

US citizens expressed their anger during the "No Kings" protest movement, which began in June as demonstrations against workplace raids in Los Angeles and grew into the largest sustained protest since 2020.

The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project documented more than 2,800 protests between June and November, occurring in 60 percent of all US counties.

The peak came on Oct 18, when organizers and independent monitors estimated between 5 and over 7 million participants nationwide.

In late November, the movement launched a Thanksgiving boycott of retailers like Amazon and Home Depot, who were accused of enabling ICE actions, drawing thousands in coordinated actions through Cyber Monday.

The immigration debate did not occur in isolation. It unfolded against the backdrop of partisan polarization, which, according to most analysts, reached levels unparalleled in modern political history.

Partisan polarization has left Congress unable to carry out even basic legislative tasks and has deeply divided the US public.

Jack Midgley, principal of global consultancy Midgley & Co and an adjunct associate professor at Georgetown University, said that polarization escalated in 2025.

"Most polls show that the US has grown more polarized this year, but also that the public feels less polarized than political leaders are," he told China Daily. He pointed to the increasing role of large single-issue donors as a key driver.

Opposing rhetoric

Consulting company Gallup's annual ideology survey, updated in January, found that only 34 percent of US citizens now identify as political moderates.

Seventy-seven percent of Republicans described themselves as conservative or very conservative; fifty-five percent of Democrats identified as liberal or very liberal.

Pew data from late November and early December reinforces this, with 82 percent of respondents now viewing the opposing party as a "threat to the nation's well-being", up from 78 percent in September.

The Pew Research Center's July report went beyond ideology to measure perceptions of reality.

Eighty percent of respondents agreed that members of the opposing party "not only disagree on plans and policies but cannot agree on basic facts".

It was followed by another October report claiming 53 percent see left-wing extremism and 52 percent right-wing extremism as major problems causing violence.