Creating fear and panic seemed more the goal of Tuesday’s federal raid on Canal St. than any type of legitimate enforcement action. And in that it succeeded.

For the last few months, New Yorkers have watched militarized federal immigration operations play out in cities from Los Angeles to Chicago to Portland with a mixture of trepidation and relief that they had not come here. But that ended Tuesday as dozens of federal agents — pulled from multiple agencies like the FBI and IRS that should have been using their time and manpower for more productive reasons — fanned out around Canal St. in downtown Manhattan, setting off a maelstrom.

The fact that the Trump administration deployed on a street known for selling knockoff goods like handbags and watches a sizable force of agents in bulletpr

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