They know that as the empire continues to fall and their overreach begins to affect more lives, protests will grow.

The standard pigs can handle what we have now, they can't handle what is to come.

Whether this move is to pre-empt a coming change of the "big beautiful bill" that guts medicare/medicaid and other social programs, an even broader "sweeping net" policy on immigration, direct hostilities with Iran/China, something else, or all of the above...

They are predicting a broad national outrage over something.