BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Cracking down on illegal immigration was one of the key promises President-elect Donald Trump made during his campaign.

Trump has tapped upstate New York native Tom Homan as his "border czar" tasked with carrying out those vows.

"I've got a message to the millions of illegal aliens that Joe Biden has released in our country in violation of federal law: You better start packing now," Homan said at the Republican National Convention.

New York Immigration Coalition Senior Director of Advocacy Meghan Maloney de Zaldivar said rhetoric from the incoming administration, including Homan's suggestion the federal government could deport entire families including children born in the United States, is sparking fear.

"What we have seen is that the previous Trump administration did target families and instated a priority policy that everybody is a priority," she said.

Western New York immigration attorney Rosanna Berardi said her firm has been working to alleviate fears. She said mass deportation policies require Congress to declare a state of war on specific countries.

"Even if they come out guns ablazing in Jan. 25, try to do that, it's going to be litigated and the other thing is, it's going to be litigated and the other thing is it's extremely expensive to do anything close to that and there are from 11-20 million undocumented individuals in the U.S., the government just simply doesn't have the man power," Berardi said.

At its peak, Albany County had as many as 1,500 migrants from New York City living in area hotels. County Executive Dan McCoy said, with state assistance, many have found permanent housing and the remaining several hundred will go back to the city before the end of the year. McCoy took a trip with the New York state Association of Counties to the Southern Border, and said drug and human trafficking is a real concern. 

"There is an issue in New York City. There is a gang issue. There is a gang issue that are coming hear from new countries. They're the ones that need to be taken off the street and get rid of them, not the ones that came here and are going through the legal process, the ones that are being bad actors," he said.

Those involved said previous Trump administration policies did have a chilling effect on both legal ind illegal immigration and the federal government also attempted to utilize local law enforcement to identify people in the country illegally.