An awkward question has begun to nag opponents of Donald Trump’s immigration policies: is the resistance inadvertently helping the administration?

Few say it publicly but there is concern that the rallies and marches, alerts and tweets, workshops and press releases are helping the administration sow fear among undocumented immigrants.

The spectre of deportation so haunts communities across the United States that some people are afraid to report crimes and others have reportedly decided to return to Mexico and Central America before they get swept up.

Yet the perception of ramped-up deportations is, for now, false.

Removals have not spiked since Trump’s inauguration, according to figures Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) supplied to the Guardian: 35,604 removals in January and February, versus 35,255 over the same period last year.

Mexico’s foreign minister said last month that under Trump there had been no rise in the number of deported Mexicans, and that numbers had in fact slightly fallen. Carlos García de Alba, Mexico’s consul general in Los Angeles, told the Guardian that up to 27 March 193 Mexicans had been arrested in LA county since Trump’s inauguration, with roughly 50 deported – “much less than the average with President Obama”.

Yet consulates and immigration attorneys report a surge in people seeking information about Ice raids, real and imagined, and advice about what to do if detained and deported.

This reflects a White House strategy to rattle the 11 million-strong undocumented population, said Lizbeth Mateo, a prominent undocumented LA-based activist. “It is enforcement through attrition – instilling so much fear that people leave on their own.”

Workers and immigration activists march in Queens, New York, in March. Trump has vowed to deport millions of people. Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Many immigrant rights groups play into the strategy by hyping the risk of deportation, a message then echoed by media, she said. “Some media is really helping further Trump’s agenda.”

Roberto Suro, a journalism and Latino affairs scholar at the University of Southern California, said the White House may struggle to match Barack Obama’s record-breaking deportation levels but that tough rhetoric and scattered high-profile Ice operations were generating energetic immigrant activism and news coverage.

“Fear is a natural consequence. People appear to be changing their behavior. There’s talk of folks at least thinking about going home. That obviously would suit Trump’s purposes.”

Activists face a dilemma.

On one hand, they feel they must sound the alarm. During the election Trump vowed to banish all 11 million undocumented people. In office he drastically broadened enforcement guidelines and vowed to swiftly deport 2 million to 3 million people.

It is enforcement through attrition – instilling so much fear that people leave on their own Lizbeth Mateo, undocumented LA activist

Anecdotal evidence – such as the detention of Dreamers, a father driving his daughter to school and a mother in Phoenix – suggest more aggressive Ice tactics. And in a statement an Ice spokeswoman, Sarah Rodriguez, said operations were targeted and lead-driven but that the net had widened. “We do not engage in indiscriminate sweeps or raids. However, as [homeland security] secretary Kelly has made clear, with very limited exceptions, Ice will no longer exempt classes or categories of removable aliens from potential enforcement. Any alien encountered during the course of targeted enforcement actions is subject to removal.”

But in sounding the alarm activists spread fear, thus serving the president’s agenda – a quandary that “almost requires a degree in postmodern French philosophy”, said Chris Newman, legal director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. The administration sought to make citizens afraid of immigrants and immigrants afraid of government. “They’re playing the media like a symphony.”

Even so, said Newman, there was only one option: resist. “Our overall view is when in doubt, fight back, even if it means amplifying Trump’s message.”

For Mateo, the activist, some fellow activists and media outlets, especially Spanish-language broadcasters, do a disservice by telling people to brace for the worst, as if deportation were something to prepare for rather than resist. “It’s very disempowering.”

One media group said ‘reporters should write about the fact that Trump is trying to drive this fear and anxiety’. Photograph: Olivier Douliery / POOL/EPA

From the opposite end of the spectrum Rodriguez, the Ice spokeswoman, lamented hype and false rumours. “They create panic and put communities and law enforcement personnel in unnecessary danger. Those who are falsely reporting such activities are doing a disservice to those they claim to support.”

In the current political climate there was no easy balance between informing and frightening people, said Doris Meissner, who headed the Immigration and Naturalization Service under Bill Clinton and now works at the Migration Policy Institute. “It’s a real dilemma.”

It could be a year before Ice ramps up deportations but the broadened deportation categories meant more people were already at risk, she said. “It’s not unreasonable to be fearful. But the likelihood of being in the wrong place at the wrong time does appear to be quite low.”

Janine Jackson, program director of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (Fair), said the journalists needed to report fear without fuelling it. “You don’t need to cover every deportation. The media should be wary of carrying water for the White House. Reporters should write about the fact that Trump is trying to drive this fear and anxiety.”

Others think activists, and the media, have a straightforward task: blow the whistle, hard, because Hurricane Trump is gathering force.

“I actually think the media’s coverage has been good in letting undocumented people know the gravity of the situation. Because those deportations are coming, and are actually already happening,” said Gustavo Arellano, editor of OC Weekly and author of the syndicated column ¡Ask a Mexican!

Lucas Zucker, of Cause, an immigrant rights group on California’s coast, said people urgently needed to know what to do if Ice came knocking. “The Trump administration is absolutely gearing up to do mass deportations so it is important in this calm before the storm for our community to know their rights.”