The article's premise is that most people thought Trump was bluffing/lying about barring Muslims, as well as about increasing deportation of undocumented workers. These executive orders proved Trump was serious about Muslims, and the NY Times simply found people who then realized that he probably is serious about undocumented workers as well.

Basically all the fears in this article were realized with the DHS announcements yesterday: https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-immigrant-crackdown-worri...