SEATTLE (AP) — Lawyers are demanding the release of a longtime Oregon resident arrested by Border Patrol while fighting a Washington state wildfire, saying Friday that the firefighter was already on track for legal status after helping federal investigators solve a crime against his family.
His arrest was illegal, the lawyers said, and violated Department of Homeland Security polices that say immigration enforcement must not be conducted at locations where emergency responses are happening.
He is one of two firefighters arrested this week while working the Bear Gulch Fire in the Olympic National Forest, which as of Friday had burned about 14 square miles (36 square kilometers) and was only 13% contained, forcing evacuations.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a statement Thursday that it had been helping the Bureau of Land Management with a criminal investigation into two contractors working at the fire when it discovered two firefighters who they said were in the country without permanent legal status.
The firefighter, whose name has not been made public, lived in the U.S. for 19 years after arriving with his family at age 4. He received a U-Visa certification from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Oregon in 2017 and submitted his U-Visa application with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services the following year.
The U-Visa program was established by Congress to protect victims of serious crimes who assist federal investigators, and the man has been waiting since 2018 for the immigration agency to decide on his application, according to Stephen Manning, a lawyer with Innovation Law Lab, a Portland-based nonprofit that’s representing the firefighter.
Another Homeland Security policy says agents can’t detain people who are receiving or have applied for victim-based immigration benefits, his lawyer said. Charging the man with an immigration violation was “an illegal after-the-fact justification” given his U-Visa status.
The man has not yet been located in the immigration detention system, and his attorney is demanding his immediate release.
Messages seeking comment from the Border Patrol and Homeland Security about lawyer’s claims were not immediately returned.
When the Bureau of Land Management was asked to provide information about why its contracts with two companies were terminated and 42 firefighters were escorted away from the state’s largest wildfire, it declined. It would only say it cooperates with other federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security.
“These law enforcement professionals contribute to broader federal enforcement efforts by maintaining public safety, protecting natural resources, and collaborating with the agencies, such as the Border Patrol,” Department of Interior spokesperson Alyse Sharpe told The Associated Press in an email.
Manning said in a letter to Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat, that the arrest violated Homeland Security policy.
Wyden was critical of the Border Patrol’s operation, saying President Donald Trump‘s administration is more concerned about conducting raids on fire crews than protecting communities from catastrophic fires. Firefighters put their lives on the line, Wyden emphasized, such as the Oregon firefighter who died Sunday while battling a wildfire in southwestern Montana.
“The last thing that wildland firefighter crews need is to be worried about masked individuals trampling their due process rights,” Wyden said in an email to the AP.
Meanwhile, wildfire officials were still trying to get control of the Bear Gulch Fire. The number of personnel working on the blaze was listed at 303 on Friday, down from 349 on Thursday.
