Rather than deport every undocumented regardless of their individual circumstances, the Obama administration created the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program for minors and children and also rewrote the rules of enforcement to place greater emphasis on actual criminals or people who pose an immediate threat instead of deporting someone's grandma.
As you know, the Trump regime threw all of that out and began deporting anyone they could get their hands on including grandmas and grandpas, local business owners, and single parents.
The Obama era rules were a threat to the public, Trump and his cabinet lackeys would say, but now that we're dealing with a global pandemic it appears that the Obama administration's enforcement priorities are acceptable. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) now says undocumented farmworkers are "essential" and enforcement will focus on actual criminals.
From the New York Times:
LOS ANGELES — Like legions of immigrant farmworkers, Nancy Silva for years has done the grueling work of picking fresh fruit that Americans savor, all the while afraid that one day she could lose her livelihood because she is in the country illegally.
But the widening coronavirus pandemic has brought an unusual kind of recognition: Her job as a field worker has been deemed by the federal government as “essential” to the country.
Ms. Silva, who has spent much of her life in the United States evading law enforcement, now carries a letter from her employer in her wallet, declaring that the Department of Homeland Security considers her “critical to the food supply chain.” [...]
The pandemic has also put many of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s operations on hold. On March 18, the agency said it would “temporarily adjust its enforcement posture” to focus not on ordinary undocumented immigrants, but on those who pose a public safety or criminal threat.
The agency said it would not carry out enforcement actions near health care facilities “except in the most extraordinary of circumstances” and would instead focus its efforts on human trafficking, gangs and drug enforcement.
It remains to be seen how strictly they will adhere to these new priorities but, in other words, we're right back where we where before Trump took office.
And what has changed? There's a pandemic sweeping the globe, but if someone where actually a threat last week, shouldn't they still be?
A significant number of if not the majority of people targeted for deportation by the Trump regime -- people that were not a priority under the Obama administration -- never posed a threat to anyone. Many of those deported by Trump were deported after they voluntarily and transparently reported to local immigration authorities for routine check-ins. Cooperation between authorities and immigrants during the Obama era actually made it easier for Trump to deport them because federal authorities already knew where to find them.
This may be too optimistic a take, but given the ongoing pandemic and the limited amount of time between now and the November election, it's possible Trump's mass deportation days are done. Not because he lost the desire to deport more people; because it's just not practical to continue that politically-motivated side-campaign right now.