Does the small number of such raids on illegals indicate
A) Very few people are snitching on the 12 million illegals, at least half of whom are highly visible.
b) People are snitching in big numbers but the ICE is lazy, incompetent, bureaucratic and thus handles only a small percentage of those snitched on.
I'm pro-illegal and active on the issue and in the illegal community since '61. Most of the sntiching I'm aware of is not anti-illegals with a political axe to grind. Most of the snitching is by others in the illegal community with a personal axe to grind. Some illegal, or employer of illegals personally ticked them off and snitching in anger (and often drunken anger) is their way of getting even.
The most common snitching I've seen is by a rejected lover when drunk.
My wife (an illegal who received amnesty) was personally ticked off about a day labor agency that ran a business selling IDs to illegals. She snitched. A couple weeks later a couple guys on the ID selling side were arrested. The day labor agency side and known bosses of the operation were not touched. It seemed more like symbolic gesture than diligence in law enforcement.
I do not know if my wife's snitching was the motivation ... or maybe it was just a message to the ID selling ring that the mordita would have to be a little bigger in the future.
Since I read story after story where local law enforcement encounters someone who turns out to be illegal, but ICE can't be bothered to pick the person up and deport them, I'd say that "lazy, incompetent, bureaucratic" about covers it.
Thats probably it.
ICE is under funded and under manned.
There are some 10 to 20 million illegal aliens in the US and we have less then 5,000 folks looking for them. Priorities indicate that ICE will be looking for the most violent and dangerous of the illegals, not the millions just making a living.