“Rank-and-file immigration agents, in both the border and the interior, have long been hostile to the administration's attempts to tell them who they can and can't deport. Immigration agents suffer from some of the lowest morale in the federal government, and union reps generally tie this to a feeling that they're not being allowed to do their jobs by deporting unauthorized immigrants. (It probably doesn't help morale that in recent weeks, agents have been dealing with the threat of a DHS shutdown which would force them to come into work without pay.)
This feeling long predates the president's 2014 executive actions — in fact, it predates any actual policy limiting deportations. The National ICE Council, the union representing ICE agents, issued a vote of no confidence in then-director John Morton in summer 2010 — before any memos had been released attempting to limit deportations.
But for all that agents complain, ICE field offices have demonstrated — especially during Obama's first term — that they didn't have much of a problem deporting immigrants who were supposed to be "low priorities" anyway. And unauthorized immigrants and immigrant-rights activists were hyper-aware that the administration's rhetoric didn't match what was happening to people on the ground.”
Policy vs. practice.
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