I would describe events like that as:

battles of will where one side seeks to defeat the other in toto, not actually arrive at a solution that overcomes the conflict.

The deeper issue is immigration policy, which is a topic that displays the pattern I mentioned: no real attempt to solve the issue by addressing both sides/various parties, and instead boils it into an us-them struggle of political wills.

The responsibility of intellectuals in this case should be IMO to clearly analyze the immigration debate and discuss the benefits, downsides, likely consequences etc. of various actions.

But we don’t get that. Instead everyone just has an opinion already formed, including the intellectuals. And unfortunately unbiased rational approaches seem to lose (in money, attention) to the loud and opinionated.

So as the problem gets more complicated, people get further and further away from actually solving it.

Unfortunately the well was poisoned for this debate when the Republican Party enacted a decades-long campaign of obstructionism and propaganda. No doubt, there are individuals who must be absolutely giddy with excitement that the very “crisis” that they managed to manufacture (both literally through legislative obstructionism, and figuratively through media capture and propaganda) is now the perfect excuse to grab power to enact an authoritarian regressive agenda instead of slowly sliding more progressive due to demographic drift.

So, basically, my point is beware getting dragged into debates that clearly only benefit specific parties with specific agendas without first asking yourself more critical questions about the bigger picture.