SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — In the wake of this weekend's historic nationwide protests against him and his administration, President Donald Trump ordered immigration officials to expand deportation efforts in major, Democratic-led cities.
Was this a calculated retaliation? Or a purely coincidental crackdown?
ABC 10News turned to Thad Kousser, professor of political science at UCSD, for the answer.
First, Kousser acknowledged the overwhelming public participation in Saturday's 'No Kings' protests, with more than five million people taking the streets in more than 2,000 demonstrations across the country.
That included the 60,000+ people estimated to walk through downtown San Diego alone.
“A clear public voice against the immigration enforcement within communities that we're seeing targeted to people who don't have criminal histories," Kousser said.
President Trump, however, came back with a powerful statement of his own Sunday evening with this post to Truth Social.
In it, he ordered officers with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to "to do all in their power to achieve the very important goal of delivering the single largest Mass Deportation Program in History."
Trump added, "In order to achieve this, we must expand efforts to detain and deport Illegal Aliens in America’s largest Cities, such as Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, where Millions upon Millions of Illegal Aliens reside."
This timing of this post prompted questions about the possibility that this weekend's protests only added fuel to his immigration enforcement operation.
READ MORE: Trump directs ICE to expand deportations in Democratic-run cities
"Is he moving in the direction the protesters want? Is he retaliating against them? What we'll have to see is what he actually does, rather than simply what he posts to Truth Social," Kousser said.
Kousser pointed out Trump never mentioned the protests specifically, and calling out major cities that are notably Democratic doesn't differ from his day one immigration policy.
“Large urban areas are democratic areas, and that happens to be correlated with where people who don't have legal immigration status often live," Kousser said.
Also, two days before the protests, Trump reversed course on crackdowns involving farm and hospitality workers, pausing most raids involving those industries.
“We can’t take farmers and take all their people and send them back because they don’t have maybe what they’re supposed to have," Trump said last Thursday, June 12. “We can’t do that to our farmers — and leisure too. Hotels. We’re going to have to use a lot of common sense on that.”
Kousser said it's too early to tell what kind of impact this weekend's protests might have, whether they come with unintended consequences or positive change.
“The actions of the Trump administration over the next year will tell the story of what happened on the last weekend and whether that and any further protests will actually bear fruit," Kousser said.
If you want an indicator for the future, Kousser said to look at the average voter.
He said it's clear where the left and right-leaning bases are on immigration, but the ones in the middle will likely dictate what direction the White House takes moving forward.
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