Yep - that is why many love profiling - security theater that doesn't even inconvenience them because they are the "right people". Plus it focuses on "the bad people".

Even though it has a trivial workaround of not looking the part. The Lod Airport Massacre "terrorism swap" with Japanese Red Army Terrorists and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-External Operations in 1972 shows just how useless it is as a measure.

I'm not sure why you're being downvoted, it seems entirely correct, given the prevailing political climate.

And unfortunately this is often how they get away with doing stuff like this. People scream "my privacy!", government replies "but illegal immigrants?!?!", and people are like "ah all good then, I've got nothing to hide!".

It's just so dumb, and I've heard a lot of older people especially who will say the common "Why is it a problem if you've got nothing to hide?". I think some people fail to understand the kind of data people can have stored, and how much of some people's lives are part of their digital devices. I'm sure they wouldn't want police coming into their house and searching it.

Immigration : the government's favorite scape goat.

Let's be clear, it's not just the government but a large chunk of media and voters using immigrants as a scapegoat.

As much as they may like to, I've yet to have armed agents of CNN et al demand to search my electronics.