Border Patrol arrests 2 crew workers helping battle Washington’s biggest wildfire for being in the country illegally

KING, VIDEO OBTAINED BY KING, CNN

By Celina Tebor, CNN

(CNN) — Border Patrol agents on Wednesday arrested two crew workers helping to contain Washington state’s biggest wildfire, saying they were in the United States illegally. Lawyers for one of the men dispute that characterization, alleging he was already on track for legal status.

The Bureau of Land Management and the US Forest Service had requested support from a local Border Patrol station as the agencies terminated work contracts with two firms on the Olympic Peninsula, according to a news release from US Customs and Border Protection.

Without offering details, the agency said the contracts were ended following the conclusion of a criminal investigation by the Bureau of Land Management.

“Several discrepancies were identified, and two individuals were found to be present in the United States illegally, one with a previous order of removal,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement Thursday.

The two contracted workers arrested were there in a support role, cutting logs into firewood, according to a senior DHS official.

“The firefighting response remained uninterrupted the entire time,” a senior DHS official said in an updated statement Friday.

CBP said the two people were arrested and taken to Bellingham Station near the Canadian border.

The Bear Gulch Fire on the peninsula has already torched almost 9,000 acres in the Olympic National Forest.

The Bureau of Land Management requested that Border Patrol verify the identities of all the personnel present “due to the remote location of the work site,” the release states.

Officials handling the Bear Gulch Fire in northwest Washington said in a short statement Thursday they “are aware of a Border Patrol operation here.”

“The Border Patrol operation is not interfering with firefighting activity and Bear Gulch firefighters continue to make progress on the fire,” the statement continued.

The Seattle Times was first to report the arrests.

Washington Rep. Emily Randall’s office confirmed the arrests in an email to CNN.

Waiting for a decision since 2018

A longtime Oregon resident was one of the two arrested, the Associated Press reported, citing lawyers for the man, who on Friday told AP his client was already on track for legal status after helping federal investigators solve a crime against his family.

The man, whose name has not been made public, has lived in the US for 19 years after arriving with his family at age 4, his attorneys told AP. He received a U-Visa certification from the US Attorney’s Office in Oregon in 2017 and submitted his U-Visa application to US Citizenship and Immigration Services the following year.

Stephen Manning, a lawyer with Innovation Law Lab, a Portland-based nonprofit representing him, told AP he has been waiting since 2018 for the immigration agency to decide on his U-Visa application, which protects victims of serious crimes who assist federal investigators.

Charging the man with an immigration violation, the lawyer argued, was “an illegal after-the-fact justification” given his visa status. CNN has reached out to DHS seeking comments on this case.

Manning alleged his client was also protected by a DHS policy barring immigration enforcement in emergency response areas, but DHS has previously said that he and the other man arrested were there only in a supporting role.

The lawyers said they were able to locate the man in the immigration detention system and made contact on Friday. They are still processing information and are demanding his immediate release, according to the AP.

Coordination between agencies

The Border Patrol operation comes as President Donald Trump has cracked down on immigration across the country. In the first seven months of his second term, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has deported nearly 200,000 people, CNN previously reported – putting the federal agency on track for its highest rate of removals in at least a decade but still short of the administration’s stated deportation target of 1 million deportations a year.

“This cooperative effort highlights the coordination between federal agencies in ensuring the integrity of government operations and maintaining public trust in fiduciary matters,” US Border Patrol Blaine Sector Chief Patrol Agent Rosario P. Vasquez said in a statement. “U.S. Border Patrol steadfastly enforces the laws of the United States and unapologetically addresses violations of immigration law wherever they are encountered.”

The human-caused wildfire on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula has been burning since July 6 and was just 13% contained as of Thursday. A red flag warning will remain in effect until 9 p.m. local time Thursday, and thunderstorms and gusty winds could worsen firefighting conditions.

Firefighters are battling the flames following intense heat waves in Western Washington that have spiked temperatures as much as 20 degrees above normal and stretched for days at least twice in August.

What is the policy for disaster areas?

Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson said he is “deeply concerned” about the arrests.

“I have asked my team to reach out to federal agencies for more information, to determine where these two individuals are, and to question why the Trump Administration’s cruel immigration policies now extend to individuals fighting forest fires,” Ferguson said in a statement to CNN.

Washington Sen. Patty Murray demanded answers from the federal government about the circumstances of the incident in a statement Thursday.

“Trump has undercut our wildland firefighting abilities in more ways than one—from decimating the Forest Service and pushing out thousands of critical support staff, to now apparently detaining firefighters on the job,” she said in a statement. “This administration’s immigration policy is fundamentally sick. Trump has wrongfully detained everyone from lawful green card holders to American citizens—no one should assume this was necessary or appropriate.”

Under the Biden administration, the Department of Homeland Security said it would not conduct immigration enforcement “at locations where disaster and emergency response and relief is being provided” such as evacuation routes or areas where emergency supplies are being distributed.

Under Donald Trump’s first presidential administration, as wildfires ripped through northern California and burned over 300,000 acres in 2018, DHS said it would “suspend routine immigration enforcement operations in the areas affected by the fires,” except if a serious criminal presented a public safety threat. The agency also said it wouldn’t conduct any operations at evacuation sites or assistance centers. It is unclear if that stance has changed under Trump’s second administration.

Washington state Rep. Shaun Scott said a decrease in wildfire mitigation funding has only exacerbated the issue.

“Earlier this year, a Democratically controlled Washington State Legislature, with the Democratic governor … slashed wildfire mitigation funding to the tune of $60 million. It’s about a 50% reduction,” Scott, a Democrat, told CNN’s Victor Blackwell Saturday.

“We all right now need to be thinking about what we can do in our state legislatures across the country to combat not just the federal authoritarianism that we are seeing, but also making sure that we’re not imposing austerity policies that also don’t make people any safer,” Scott added.

This story has been updated with new developments.

CNN’s Mary Gilbert and Karina Tsui contributed to this report.

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