Most of Trump’s deportation campaign is inaccessible because after arrests are made, it is moving quickly, far from public view. And because it is targeting people who have spent
an average of 16 years in the United States, trying, in many cases, to avoid public attention, rather than court it. That makes it difficult to fathom the full picture of what’s happening. In the age of virality, our devices offer up individual case studies, allowing us to congregate around them virtually. Although this is useful in helping us understand what happens when a person is plucked from their home, it takes our attention away from the larger story—
more than half a million people deported, millions more at risk—and focuses us instead on a tiny part of it.