It's both. But the real issue also existed before, they just turned it up to 11 and will likely go much further.
I don't want to downplay this, the point I was trying to make is that the perception will have a much bigger effect now independent of how likely it is for each person to be actually affected. And the perception includes the expected further escalation by the current US government.
There's a lot of issues with how the US handles immigration (and other countries as well). It's essentially a lawless zone where you're completely at the mercy of the US authorities. But even if that isn't new, the rethoric and aggressive actions by the new government will make this a lot worse.
You're both right. It was an issue before. It's an issue now too.
It might even be less of an issue now, practically, because of budget cuts.
But it will be perceived as a bigger issue than whatever the reality is because of the rhetoric.
Incidentally, when the ICE deportations started, the heated rhetoric was an explicit part of the strategy to spook people into "self-deporting".
I have no idea if this worked or not, but I believe the reason was due to not having enough budget or staff to do the scale of deportations that the administration wanted to do.
I don't want to downplay this, the point I was trying to make is that the perception will have a much bigger effect now independent of how likely it is for each person to be actually affected. And the perception includes the expected further escalation by the current US government.
There's a lot of issues with how the US handles immigration (and other countries as well). It's essentially a lawless zone where you're completely at the mercy of the US authorities. But even if that isn't new, the rethoric and aggressive actions by the new government will make this a lot worse.