“We’re still recommending that they meet with an attorney to see if they have any options to legalize their status here,” he said.

If not, he tells people, they should prepare for the worst.

“You always want to make sure you have evidence of how long you’ve been here,” he said. “If you’ve ever been arrested for any reason, have a copy of the convictions. Have the birth certificates for your kids. Have marriage certificates, divorce decrees. Have all your legal documents in order just in case something like this were to happen.”

“It will be much easier for an attorney to come in and help you out,” he added.

He also told clients to save some money in case they have to pay to bail themselves out of immigration detention.

The Trump administration has yet to surpass the number of deportations carried out under the Obama administration, which set the record for any single year in 2012, when it removed 409,849 foreigners. After criticism from advocates who derided him for unleashing an overly harsh approach, deportations declined significantly in the later years of the Obama presidency.

The Trump administration has said the strain on resources caused by increasing border crossings and overcrowded detention centers in the interior of the country are responsible for its inability to conduct more deportations. The administration deported 256,000, a 17 percent increase from the year prior, though deportations dropped slightly at the end of 2018, to 11,178 in December.

One difference is that federal authorities under Mr. Trump have been more likely to arrest undocumented people without criminal records. Mr. Obama’s administration directed authorities to consider factors like community ties or possible hardship that other family members would face when deciding whether to deport someone. Those arguments have rarely compelled immigration prosecutors to grant reprieves under the current administration, which has made clear that anyone in the country unlawfully is fair game.

“The collateral damage is out of control,” said Jeremy McKinney, an immigration defense lawyer with several offices in North Carolina. He said that lawyers in his office were aware of some asylum seekers from Central America being arrested recently by ICE agents, but that the majority of those who had been picked up seemed to have merely been “in the wrong place at the wrong time.”