Burke: What will mass deportation look like in our hometowns?

By Tom Burke / Herald Columnist

So you’re lunching in a favorite restaurant and see a military-style tricked-out HumVee drive past.

Then another.

Then two troop-filled U.S. Army 2 ½-ton trucks pass by.

Which is pretty weird for downtown Everett, Snohomish, Bothell or Edmonds.

But about ten minutes later it gets even weirder.

Because there’s a bunch of noise from the kitchen; a few heads peek out the door looking into the dining room; and the owner walks outside looking up and down the street, hurries back in and makes a bee-line for the kitchen.

And then four men enter, armed with M-16s, dressed in cammies, Beretta M9s in leg holsters. All looking very, very serious.

They too make for the kitchen where there’s now more noise and commotion with commands shouted in English and a torrent of Spanish in return; and a few minutes later there’s a parade! But not the Fouth of July kind.

This parade is led by two of the troops, followed by two men and a woman with hands zip-tied behind their back, and the remaining two soldiers following.

Out the door and down the street; and the owner comes out of the kitchen in tears.

Is this our future?

It is if you believe Donald Trump when he confirmed he would declare a national emergency and use the U.S. military to carry out mass deportations of undocumented immigrants.

And will this scene be repeated on construction sites in downtown Seattle? In the orchards surrounding Wenatchee? In the fields and vineyards and hops farms around Yakima?

It’s certainly seems likely to happen in red states.

Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt says Oklahoma is creating a plan to deport criminal illegal immigrants while in Texas, Gov. Gregg Abbot said, “There is a change afoot,” as he confers with Trump’s transition on “actions, planning, preparation, schematics … doing more and faster than anything that’s ever been done to … deport criminals who have come across the border.”

But what about so-called sanctuary cities or states with governors such as Washington’s governor-elect Bob Ferguson, who has a record of successfuly legal challenges against Trump and says, “There has been a lot of work for many, many months from my team to prepare for this,” referring to Trump’s regime and Trump’s plans to implement Project 2025, carry out mass deportations, and further restrict a woman’s right to control her own body.

Good question, especially considering how, two weeks ago, Trump’s new “border czar,” Tom Homan, said, “Let me be clear: There is going to be a mass deportation.”

And he continued he’d willingly throw Denver’s Mayor Mike Johnston in jail over his protests about mass deportation, “But look, me and the Denver mayor, we agree on one thing: He’s willing to go to jail, I’m willing to put him in jail.” (Note: the position of “border czar” is, like Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, a made-up creation; they don’t exist in federal law or statue or been authorized by Congress. They are ad-hoc creations of Trump and, especially for DOGE, don’t have any real authority to do anything but make “recommendations.”)

And speaking of DOGE, Musk’s DOGE co-chair Vivek Ramaswamy has “warned” that, “Not an iota, not a cent of government spending should go to subsidize this,” referring to cities that don’t enforce immigration law. “Not to sanctuary cities, not to federal aid to people who are in this country illegally, and we’re going to see a large number, by the millions, of self-deportations as well.”

And if anyone thinks Trump wouldn’t cut off federal funds to Washington or any jurisdiction opposing him, look no further back than 2020, when he refused to provide disaster relief after wildfires ravaged the east of the state, largely destroying the communities of Malden and Pine City, because he didn’t like Gov. Jay Inslee (according to Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Republican congresswoman whose district was scorched by the wildfires. Federal aid finally arrived but only after Trump was out of office and Biden was president).

Now ‘twixt the holiday season and the spring we’ll probably see the round-ups start (for Trump publicity purposes), a bunch of postering and some hand-wringing; but no real on-the-ground or in-your-pocketbook consequences here in Washington.

But come spring, when it’s time to ready the fields and vines for planting; or the summer, when crops must be tended; or into the fall when harvesting begins; it’s going to get ugly, both in the cities (the construction, lawn care, and hospitality sectors) and in the country where there’s no one to sow, care for, or harvest crops; and especially in the grocery store because in addition to trying to deport an estimated 246,000 immigrants without legal status here in Washington, Trump is threatening to sock Mexico and Canada and other nations with huge, new tariffs is they don’t bend to his will.

But that, gentle reader, is a subject for another column.

For now, let us simply contemplate what it’s going to mean to set up massive detention camps and actually deport 12 million people.

And where we’re going to get the workers to replace those 12 million and what effect it’s going to have on your lunch and dinner-out plans, your pocketbook, and your psyche.

So now, if you voted for Trump, well, “you asked for it;” and kicking a million, or 12 million, human beings out of this country probably ain’t gonna be what you expected.

And if you didn’t vote for Trump, just what are you going to do?

Slava Ukraini.

Tom Burke’s email address is t.burke.column@gmail.com.