That's a misleading-denominator fallacy. 8 billion isn't the relevant pool. Most of those people don't live in the US, don't follow this story, don't use GoFundMe, and have no stake in US immigration enforcement.

By your logic, the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge (17 million donors) represented only 0.2% of humanity, so ALS awareness was a nothingburger. Obviously not true.

Donating is a costly and strong signal. For every person who pays, many more quietly agree. 17,000 paying donors typically implies hundreds of thousands of sympathizers, which is a meaningful bloc in a country of 160 million voters.

You might have meant something narrower, like 'loud online fundraising can overstate real support.' That's a fair point worth making. The 8 billion framing isn't.

17 thousand is still a lot.... brb setting up a second guillotine