It starts with an even easier out group like "actual criminals or other groups that are fairly strongly hated by a lot of people".

The groundwork for this crap was laid in the 1870s when they were going after the klan, the 1920s bootleggers, then the 1940s-50s mobsters, 1980s drug traffickers, 2000s terrorists, etc, etc. Every step of the way people cheered.

Of course some people looked at the "hurricane cone" of public policy at the time and said that we were not on a good path. Of course they were ignored.