Border patrol cars circled a gym parking lot in Sugar Land. Federal agents descended on an apartment complex in northwest Houston. Teachers in Austin rode home with students to make sure their parents had not been deported during the school day.

While none of those reports could be confirmed and no uptick in enforcement activity was apparent in Houston last week, immigrant communities here and across Texas felt a wave of anxiety after much-publicized reports of arrests in Los Angeles, Austin and other U.S. cities. Federal officials confirmed a slew of arrests but denied they were part of any abnormal surges in enforcement.

The fear, which fed on itself in the echo chamber of social media, crystallized the new, nerve-wracking reality for immigrants - and even people who might wrongly be perceived as immigrants - under the capricious first weeks of the Trump administration.

People who had long found a measure of comfort in so-called "sanctuary cities" like Houston, where local authorities do not routinely inquire about immigration status, now find themselves confused about rapidly changing policies and, in the worst cases, paralyzed by worry over what might happen if they show up for a routine check-in with immigration officers, get pulled over for a traffic violation, or even answer a knock at the door.

Donald Trump's campaign threatened to bar Muslims from the United States and force them to register with the government. The president's attitude toward immigrants in general has been hostile, U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, told constituents in Austin on Saturday.

"When you display that kind of utter disrespect and hostility towards a group of people, of course your actions and the actions of the federal agencies are going to instill fear in communities," Castro said.

Creating 'panic'

And more fear comes from uncertainty, said Wafa Abdin, an immigration attorney with Catholic Charities. Though the Obama administration increased deportations in its first several years, they later dipped. And they didn't come with wild swings, Abdin said.

"During the second Obama administration, it was very clear what the priorities were," she said.

But no one knows what the enforcement priorities under Trump will be come Monday. The administration has signaled that it could rewrite his executive order, now nullified as unconstitutional by the federal courts, that sought bans on refugees and travel from seven predominantly Muslim countries. Trump has argued they are necessary to combat terrorism, but the orders have been received by opponents as an assault on Muslims.

Just as cloudy is how federal law enforcement will be instructed to operate. Trump's Jan. 25 orders expanded priorities to target for deportation people convicted, charged or suspected of crimes, or whom officers believe pose a risk to public safety or national security, or who abuse public benefits. But there were reports of people who were not specifically the targets of raids last week getting swept up in the dragnet because they happened to be with the intended target at the time.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said in a statement Friday that the agency had been conducting routine enforcement that resulted in 160 arrests in Southern California. Many had serious criminal histories, authorities said.

"The rash of recent reports about purported ICE checkpoints and random sweeps are false, dangerous and irresponsible," ICE said in a statement Friday. "These reports create panic and put communities and law enforcement personnel in unnecessary danger."

On Saturday, the agency added that it would not confirm any operation prior to its completion and would not speculate on future operational activities.

"ICE regularly conducts targeted enforcement operations during which additional resources and personnel are dedicated to apprehending deportable foreign nationals," ICE said, adding that the operational focus is "no different than the routine, targeted arrests carried out by ICE's Fugitive Operations Teams on a daily basis."

In Austin, the Mexican consul general reiterated ICE's assertions, but told the Texas Tribune that raids on Thursday and Friday were the most extensive he'd seen in two years. Forty-four Mexican nationals were apprehended in the area, compared with the typical handful per day.

They "are looking for specific persons" with criminal histories, Consul Carlos Gonzalez Gutierrez said.

Some Houstonians are bracing for what they see as the inevitability of new enforcement actions here.

Andrea Guttin, the legal director of Houston Immigration Legal Services Collaborative, said even though there were no confirmed raids here yet, the community is concerned and trying to prepare. An immigrant and refugee rights hotline will be set up this week in collaboration with the American Civil Liberties Union.

Fighting hate

Immigration attorney Norma Ayoub said she has warned clients that while raids haven't hit Houston yet, she expects workplaces to be targeted anytime. She's urged employers to make sure they have their immigration documents in order.

She and the other lawyers addressed a community meeting held by the Arab American Cultural and Community Center on Saturday, designed to address general questions about the refugee bans.

The lawyers didn't plan on talking about immigration raids, but the questions came up. As someone comforted a crying baby in the back of the room, one of the lawyers read a question about what could be done to counter an increasingly tense atmosphere marked by hate speech and hate crimes.

"Hold tight," attorney Nejd Jill Yaziji said. "Show your best selves. I believe you can raise the game … by just showing how peaceful 99.9 percent of Muslims are. They are law abiding citizens. They bring jobs into this country. And they're coming here for a very simple reason: They can't find peace and security in their home country."

Immigrants also demanded answers from local elected officials about their role in protecting Houstonians during possible raids at a separate forum Saturday.

"Our members at the Texas Organizing Project knocked on doors to have you elected," Silvia Chicas told local officials at a police and community relations forum at a downtown church Saturday. "How will you actively protect undocumented immigrants when ICE comes knocking on our door, and when will you do it?"

Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said her office does not ask the documentation status of any victim or witness, but there's only so much protection the local government can offer.

"We worked with the police department to make sure that the protesters both at the Super Bowl and in the airport got the right to exercise your First Amendment freedoms," Ogg, a Democrat, said. "But beyond talking about it, we have to vote. We're here because people did not vote."

Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said he does not want to have excessive arrests of undocumented immigrants, but still wants to keep the region safe.

"If somebody enters our custody that's been a violent offender of some kind, there will be some level of accountability because undocumented and documented communities need safety as well," he said.

While running for office, he pledged to end the county's agreement with ICE to detain undocumented immigrants when they are released from jail, known as the 287(g) program. Sheriff's spokesman Ryan Sullivan recently said the department is reviewing the agreement.

The sheriff's office said late Friday that it has not participated in any street-level immigration enforcement.

"As has always been the case, the HCSO's cooperation with ICE is limited to screenings in the Harris County Jail for offenders arrested and charged with state crimes," the statement said.

Dianna Alexander, an educator in Spring Branch ISD, told the crowd at the forum that she'd heard about teachers riding on Austin buses and apartments raided off of Gessner Road within the last week.

Even though she's a U.S. citizen, she worries she will now get stopped by immigration officials or police. "Are we going to be racially profiled because we're brown?" Alexander wondered. "How do you know that someone's a citizen just looking at them, so are people going to be checked?"

In a phone interview Sunday, local activist Dr. David Michael Smith said that, like Alexander, he'd heard unconfirmed reports of immigration activity on Gessner within the last week.

But so far, those reports have remained just rumors.

"There's nothing concrete in the city," he said, adding that ICE regularly picks up people in the Houston area, one or two at a time.

Deportations cheered

Mary Moreno, a spokesperson for Texas Organizing Project, said she received a text message from an undocumented immigrant on Friday who claimed to see a border patrol car pulling someone over in Sugar Land. The person also claimed to see border patrol driving in a gym parking lot.

Sugar Land police said Saturday that they were not aware of any such activity.

Such raids would come as welcome news to conservatives like Elizabeth Theiss, president of Stop the Magnet, a political action committee that supports deportation of undocumented immigrants.

"Finally, after a decade of screaming, we are seeing some action," she said. "It's just an unusual thing to see politicians do what they promised to do."

She believes that deportations will make the country safer.

"I hope that it continues and we get to see it in the Houston area, so that those jobs begin to go to legal American citizens who do not have jobs," Theiss said.

Keri Blakinger contributed to this report.