Immigration agents arrested two Mexican contractors helping to tackle a wildfire in Olympic National Forest in Washington, a supervisor who oversees the crews said Thursday.
It was one of the first times federal immigration agents have been known to enter a fire zone to carry out President Donald Trump’s mass deportation orders, veteran firefighters said.
Two work crews, totaling 44 people, were gathered at a staging site near Lake Cushman around 9 a.m. Wednesday when federal agents appeared, crew boss David Diaz said.
They were only about a mile from the Bear Gulch fire line and planned to spend the day chopping lumber, Diaz said.
The cause of the fire, which started July 6, is still under investigation. It has scorched nearly 9,000 acres and was 13% contained Thursday evening, according to the incident command team.
A helicopter drops water on a hot spot on the fire’s edge on Aug. 6.U.S. Forest Service
Twenty of the contract workers were Mexican, and all carried work visas and passports, he said. But federal officials arrested two of them on suspicion of being in the United States illegally.
Gov. Bob Ferguson said in a statement on social media that he was “deeply concerned about this situation with two individuals helping to fight fires in Washington state.”
Diaz immediately recognized one of the black trucks that he had seen the previous week at Walmart, where his crew had gone to pick up supplies after it arrived in Washington, he said. The truck followed him to a hardware store and then to a gas station, he said.
“We saw the black truck literally do a U-turn right in front of us while we’re at the store.” he said. “We’ve just been followed the whole time.”
Videos recorded by Diaz and posted to social media appeared to show Border Patrol agents detaining two crew members. Other videos show crew members lined up side-by-side in front of Border Patrol agents.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a statement that the arrests followed a criminal investigation into the two contracting companies, Oregon-based Table Rock Forestry Inc. and Idaho-based ASI Arden Solutions Inc. The Bureau of Land Management, which conducted the investigation, did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and CBP did not provide details.
The companies also did not respond to requests for comment.
BLM, which oversees 245 million acres of federal land, requested help from the U.S. Border Patrol in verifying the identities of all work crew members, immigration officials said. One of the two who were arrested had a previous order of removal on his record, they said.
Contracts with the two firefighting companies were terminated, according to Customs and Border Protection.
“The contract termination and enforcement action did not interfere with firefighting operations or the response to any active fires in the area, nor did it pose any danger to the surrounding community,” the agency said in its statement.
The enforcement action left a sour feeling among the crew members, Diaz said. They were not allowed to say goodbye to the two men who were arrested, and they were forced to stand around for about three hours while the federal agents checked their records.
Diaz said all he could do was hand one of the detained men a mango cream soda.
“With the private contractors, it’s hard for us to even sometimes go out to a fire. I mean, we’re lucky enough if we even get this kind of work,” he said, adding that once a crew member is deported, it is impossible to get him back.
“There’s already a lack of resources,” he went on. “Wildfires could get out of hand, bigger than what anyone expects.”
Washington and Oregon increasingly rely on contract crews like Diaz’s because of a federal firefighter shortage. Unlike California, which invests heavily in a multiagency approach that includes state, local and federal resources, the Pacific Northwest contracts to private companies to fill open slots on fire crews.
The situation leaves more room for error, said Steve Gutierrez, a union representative with the National Federation of Federal Employees.
“This wouldn’t happen with the Forest Service,” he said, which requires strict background checks, including citizenship status.
That it happened during an active fire, he said, was especially concerning. Immigration enforcement actions do not usually occur near fire lines, Diaz and Gutierrez said, and Wednesday could mark a new chapter in how the Trump administration handles natural disasters.
Trump this year rescinded a Biden-era policy barring immigration enforcement at so-called sensitive locations like schools and churches. That also applied to natural disasters, but it appears to have changed with the arrests Wednesday.
“This is the first time this has happened in all my 26 years” in firefighting, Diaz said. “They could have done this in a more humane way.”