The queue starts outside the consulate gate soon after dawn and stretches up Park View street. The visitors speak in low murmurs, exchanging the latest rumours. A dragnet in Glendale. Checkpoints in Highland Park. People deported for jaywalking. For speaking Spanish.

Some visitors say they have sold their furniture to create an emergency fund. Others wonder if they should stop going to work and pull their kids from school. Overreactions? Wise precautions? No one knows. They’ve come here for answers.

Inside the gate hulks a nondescript, cream-coloured office block. Lights flicker into life on a pale winter day and by 7am all is aglow: the consulate general of Mexico in Los Angeles is open for business. It is a lighthouse, of sorts, for undocumented Mexicans caught in the political maelstrom that is Hurricane Trump.

“I’m here to make a plan,” said Juana Sanchez, 53, a seamstress who has stitched and sewed in LA’s fashion district for 29 years. A plan for what? She managed a tight smile. “Deportation.” The immigration policies gusting out of the White House have chilled the US’s estimated 11 million undocumented people, half of whom are Mexican. The new president has vastly widened the numbers deemed priorities for expulsion.

“As we speak tonight we are removing gang members, drug dealers that threaten our communities and prey on our very innocent citizens,” he told a joint session of Congress last week. “Bad ones are going out as I speak and as I promised throughout the campaign.”

The Mexicans who flock to the LA consulate say that in reality Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is sweeping up caretakers, students, mothers – anyone who entered the US illegally, and is thus a law-breaker.

“Trump is the world’s worst terrorist. He has the Latino community terrorised,” said Rosa Palacios, a careworker with a nine-year-old granddaughter who weeps in fear at losing relatives. The hostility outdid previous anti-immigrant crackdowns, she said. “It is worse than when they thought we were infected.”

Manuel Selvas, 44, who earns $10 an hour unloading containers, said the president had uncorked prejudice. “Before people were afraid to be racist in public but now they feel protected.” People in the street had yelled at him to leave America, he said. “They say we’re stealing jobs but Americans don’t want to clean toilets or pick strawberries.”

Mexico’s government has warned of a “new reality” for Mexicans in the US and urged them to take precautions and get in touch with their nearest consulates, which will receive $50m in extra funding. The concern is humanitarian and economic – remittances from the US topped $27bn last year, a lifeline that dwarfs oil revenues. Mexico’s 50 US consulates are scrambling to meet the surge in demand for their services. A new 24-hour hotline is fielding thousands of calls daily.

With an estimated 1 million undocumented people, LA – purportedly the second biggest Mexican city outside Mexico City – is a crucible. The four-storey consulate that abuts MacArthur Park is certainly the biggest and probably busiest consulate. Visitors fill its halls and offices with nervous energy, seeking help and hope.

Sanchez, the seamstress, said she had never been in trouble with the law but feared being stopped on her way to or from work. “I drive very carefully, so carefully,” she said in Spanish. “They can take you for any infraction. You have the fear of not knowing that if you leave your home, you’ll be back.”

She sat at the end of a row of plastic chairs in a large room lined by lawyers’ cubicles – the department of protection. Sanchez sought a deportation contingency plan: a checklist of what to say and not say if stopped, who to call, what to pack, if given the chance to pack. “I’m very grateful to this country. It has let me work. I’ve been happy. I don’t want to go to Mexico. But if I do go I want to be prepared.”

Birth certificates, which many migrants lack, are crucial. Some used to consider them arcane, an irrelevance in the US, but now they feel vital, a key document to help keep them in the US or, if need be, start a new life in Mexico.

Edgar Perez, 35, a business student, sought Mexican passports for his two US citizen children lest he be expelled. “It would make it easier for them to visit me.” The tone was matter of fact but fear gnawed at him, he said. “It’s always on the news, every day, but I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Some compare detention by ICE to a malign rapture experience: you’re going about your business – then poof, sucked into a void. Who will pick up the kids from school? Feed the cat? Pay the electricity? Questions you can dwell on in a detention centre before being bussed south and herded across a walkway into Tijuana, Nogales, Juarez or some other border city.

The uncertainty is prompting people to scrimp and save, said José Guerrera, who sells coffee and snacks outside the consulate. “I’ve been doing this 16 years and never seen people so anxious. They’re saving money for whatever may come.”

Some trek to this gritty downtown neighbourhood of taco restaurants and discount stores, their signs in Spanish, hoping the consulate can help avert deportation. A Mexican birth certificate, for instance, can be used to obtain a California driving licence – invaluable in a city where cars rule and driving without a licence can land you in jail.

Arianna Diaz, 25, sought help with her request for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca), an Obama-era programme that legalises so-called “Dreamers” – immigrants who were brought to America illegally as children. Diaz, a would-be nurse, entered the US aged seven and grew up speaking English. She now has a husband, a toddler and a newborn, all US citizens, but felt vulnerable. Last month ICE agents deported Guadalupe García de Rayos, a young mother of US children, from Arizona.

“I don’t know Mexico. I have no family there,” said Diaz. “With all the bad things I’ve heard, I don’t want to go.” Her three-month-old son had a heart condition requiring continuous care. The prospect of separation horrified her. “No, no, no.” Trump has said he has a “soft spot” for Dreamers, a vague statement to which Diaz clutches. “Most of us are hardworking people. We call this our home.”

The consulate’s website advises on what to do if detained – phone someone as soon as possible, don’t sign anything you don’t understand – and offers key phrases in English: “I want to remain silent.” “I do not consent to a search.” “I am a Mexican citizen and I want to speak to my consulate.” “I want to speak to a lawyer.” Having a lawyer, studies show, dramatically improves the chance of remaining in the US.

Civil rights groups give another tip: do not open the door to immigration agents unless they can show a judicial warrant through the window, or slip it under the door. Agents use ruses – posing as regular police, pretending to be looking for someone else, implying a warrant of removal is a judicial warrant – to gain access.

The consulate’s protection unit has 19 attorneys and legal advisers. When not giving advice they are visiting jails, swotting up on immigration law and monitoring social media for alerts about raids. Felipe Carrera, the unit’s chief, said consuls had provided protection for decades, not least during the tenure of Barack Obama, who was dubbed the “deporter-in-chief” for expelling 2.5 million people.

The Trump era’s challenge was how to empower people with information without fuelling panic, he said. The LAPD, for instance, has a policy of not facilitating deportations, but Trump has threatened to withdraw federal funding from so-called sanctuary cities. “We don’t want to be naive. The reality is changing,” said Carrera.

Sifting fact from hype is tricky. ICE picked up 680 people across the US in a series of raids last month – a routine sweep, said the agency. Trump, however, claimed it as part of his promised crackdown. Immigrant activists saw it that way too and said plenty of non-criminals were swept up.

Carlos García de Alba, the consul general, said similar raids happened before Trump. “On TV you hear about massive raids but so far we’ve not seen that. In the future there could be but up to now, no.”

The psychological impact was deep, however, and a “panic psychosis” inhibited some people from going to work or sending children to school, said the consul. In the current climate, Hispanics had legitimate reason to fear being targeted, he said. “My concern is of racial profiling and people being pushed even more to the shadows.”

Things looked very different a year ago. De Alba was finishing a stint as ambassador to Ireland and preparing to move to Mexico’s embassy in the United Arab Emirates. Trump was leading the Republican primaries but few thought he could win the White House. Hillary Clinton was promising immigration reform and her appeal to Latino voters included comparing herself to a Latina abuela (grandmother).

Latinos in California had become the single biggest population group and wielded growing clout in city halls and the state assembly. The LA consulate enlisted the mayor, galleries and museums in a year-long celebration of Mexican art, culture, gastronomy and commerce. The initiative was called 2017: Year of Mexico in Los Angeles.

Then Trump stormed to victory. Instead of crowning a queen, Mexicans fell under a new king’s heel. Instead of moving to the Arabian peninsula, De Alba, as part of a wide-ranging diplomatic shuffle, moved to LA to lead 250 staff. The year-long festival of Mexican culture is going ahead, showcasing writers, musicians and artists, but Mexican residents, documented and undocumented, are in grim mood. Troomp, as they pronounce his name, has shredded any sense of security at inhabiting a liberal, bilingual metropolis.

“It’s now a felony to pee in the street,” said Arturo Arias, 45, a homeless man seated on a bench with two friends in MacArthur Park. “Jaywalking too. Used to be you got a ticket. Now they can use it to kick you out.”

Freddy Cazador, 77, nodded. “I’ve heard ICE is riding inside patrol cars.”

Carlos Espiridion, 66, chimed in. “If they stop you and you answer in Spanish they’ll check your record, look for any excuse to deport you.”

“They” referred to ICE, LAPD, sheriff’s deputies and other law enforcement agencies. Their comments were based on inaccurate rumours. But the fear was real. It afflicted not just Arias, who is undocumented, but Espiridion, who has a green card. He felt that one slip, a minor infraction, could land him in Tijuana, shuffling in line with other deportees at a soup kitchen. Last month a former gardener leapt to his death near the border crossing hours after being deported.

On the edge of MacArthur Park, a landmark immortalised in the 1968 hit sung by Richard Harris, the queue outside the consulate dwindles as the day wears on. Visitors emerge clutching sheaves of documents and scatter across the city, back to jobs and homes.

The consulate sits in LA’s heart. From here you can walk to city hall, the Walt Disney concert hall and Dodger stadium. Numerous allies – the mayor, LAPD, civil society groups – express desire to protect Mexicans. Hollywood too. Pleas for tolerance and diversity peppered the Oscars.

Few of the faces on stage were Latino, however, and it remains to be seen how hard LA’s business, political and cultural elites will fight for a largely invisible underclass.

With Trump vowing more executive actions and a cranked-up deportation machine, it is left to the consulate and grassroots activists to respond case by case, day by day, a gruelling, bureaucratic slog where victories and defeats play out in private, away from the protest marches and cries of resistance.

It is about processing birth certificates and legalisation applications and visiting jails and detention centres and teaching marginalised people they have rights – teaching them that if the knock comes it is OK not to open the door.

Bureaucracy behind the climate of fear



• New guidelines announced last month expanded the number of undocumented immigrants who can be targeted for deportation and sped up the deportation process. Now any immigrant living in the US illegally who has been charged or convicted of a crime – or suspected of one – will be an enforcement priority. This could include people arrested for shoplifting or minor traffic offences.

• Any undocumented immigrant who has been in the country for less than two years can also be targeted for “expedited removal”, which does not need to be authorised by a court.

• The guidelines also called for thousands of extra federal agents to be hired, local law enforcement to be enlisted to expedite arrests, and more immigration judges deployed.

• There were 11.1 million undocumented immigrants in the US in 2014 – this has not changed since 2009 and it accounts for 3.5% of the US population.

• 5.8 million Mexicans were living as undocumented immigrants in 2014 – 52% of the total.

• The number of Mexicans living as undocumented immigrants has fallen over recent years, while the number from other countries has grown by 325,000 between 2009 and 2014. People coming from Asia and central America account for most of this increase.

1 THE PARENTS

Jesus Hernandez, 31, senses the fear among colleagues every time he clocks in for work on one of LA’s building sites. “You see it on their faces. They’re worried something will happen – that there might be a raid.”

For Hernandez and his partner, Berta Cervantes, 41, deportation could mean gut-wrenching separation from their three children, aged five, nine and 10. “What can be worse?” said Cervantes.

They came to the consulate to ask about certifying a guardianship letter for the children’s aunt, should they choose to keep them in the US. The children are US citizens.

They also wanted to apply for Mexican passports for the children to facilitate cross-border visits and perhaps integration, should they decide to move the children to Mexico, where they could be viewed as foreigners.

“They speak Spanish but don’t read or write it,” said Hernandez. “If they end up in a Mexican school we don’t want them to feel lost, or fall behind.” Obtaining passports now would mean one less bureaucratic headache.

2 THE LAWYER



Felipe Carrera. Photograph: Rory Carroll/The Observer

Felipe Carrera heads the consulate’s protection department, a 19-strong team of attorneys that advises and arranges documentation for documented and undocumented Mexicans in and around LA.

“We’re a kind of defence centre. We’re trying for a balance between not causing panic and empowering the community with the information that it needs.”

Mexico’s US consulates have provided this protection service for decades but demand has spiked since Trump took power, prompting Mexico’s government to pledge an extra $50m for the increased workload. “We’re hoping for more money and personnel,” said Carrera.

The biggest threat was often not immigration raids but crooked notaries and scam artists who conned clients with fake, dangerous promises to fix people’s legal status, he said. “People are being defrauded and losing their property and savings.”

3 THE CONSUL



Carlos García De Alba. Photograph: Rory Carroll/The Observer

Carlos García de Alba, formerly Mexico’s ambassador to Ireland, took over the consulate in Los Angeles last year in a diplomatic shuffling prompted by Trump’s rise. “The speed of developments here, it’s so fast,” he said. “It started even before the president’s inauguration.”

An urbane Hibernophile steeped in Irish literature, De Alba’s job now includes tracking detentions of Mexicans by LA and US federal law enforcement agencies.

Despite headlines about mass deportations, numbers so far are normal but the executive orders had unleashed a “panic psychosis”, said the consul.

“My concern is that racial profiling and fear will push people even further into the shadows. Parents are asking me if they should stop sending children to school. It means they’re really in fear. You can’t do that to honest human beings. These people are hard workers, they pay taxes.”