Firefighter Arrested by ICE at WA Wildfire Released from Detention
The Seattle Times
(TNS)
Immigration officials released Oregon firefighter Rigoberto Hernandez from the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma on Tuesday. He is back home in Oregon, his attorneys say.
U.S. Border Patrol agents arrested Hernandez and another wildland firefighter four weeks ago while they were working the Bear Gulch fire on the Olympic Peninsula. At the time, it was the largest wildfire burning in Washington, during a period of extreme fire weather.
In a statement after the arrests, Border Patrol said it had arrested the firefighters for being in the country illegally. Hernandez's attorneys, at the Innovation Law Lab and the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, filed a federal lawsuit Friday on behalf of Hernandez, seeking his release.
The attorneys argued immigration officers wrongfully arrested Hernandez and violated his constitutional rights. They say his arrest was made without a warrant, based on no information beyond Hernandez's race and his invocation of his constitutional right to silence, according to the suit.
The second firefighter is still being held in the ICE detention center in Tacoma.
The arrests were unusual. Under past administrations, including the first Trump administration, policies limited or barred immigration operations at natural disasters or other emergencies. This year, the Trump administration has aggressively increased immigration actions, with one White House official calling for a minimum" of 3,000 arrests every day. Federal officials have mistakenly arrested U.S. citizens and people authorized to live and work in the country as part of the efforts.
Hernandez's attorneys say immigration officials concealed Hernandez’s whereabouts from his family and attorneys for 48 hours after his arrest.
Late Tuesday morning, Hernandez's attorneys got word the federal government had decided to move to dismiss the removal proceedings against him and were releasing him that day. He was released around noon.
In a motion to dismiss filed Tuesday, Taylor Gardner, assistant chief counsel for ICE, wrote it was "no longer in the best interest of the government" to continue removal proceedings, citing a review of the facts of the case.
"It's just another example of a very misguided agenda," said Matt Adams, legal director for the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, in a phone call Wednesday morning. "This war on immigrants undermines all the other agencies of the government and undermines community safety and welfare."
In a statement provided by his attorneys, Hernandez said he was excited to see his family and was glad to be home.
“I want to give my thanks to everyone — for their prayers, for the rallies, for sharing about what happened to me and the other firefighter. So many people stepped up to help, and now I want to help others just like they helped me,” Hernandez said.
Hernandez was brought to the U.S. at 4 years old and was raised on the West Coast as his parents, migrant farmworkers, traveled for work.
Hernandez and his family were victims of a yearslong fraudulent scheme against immigrants, his attorneys say, and that his father’s testimony helped the federal government secure a conviction against its perpetrators in 2017.
His family applied for U visas, meant to offer protected status to the victims of these types of crimes and to encourage cooperation with law enforcement.
He has been waiting for a determination on his visa application for more than seven years because of massive backlogs in federal government processing, his attorneys say.
Before the arrests, a Bureau of Land Management ranger acting as the security manager for the Bear Gulch fire was asked by "fire leadership" to look into allegations of time-card fraud by two private fire crews, a Department of the Interior spokesperson told The Seattle Times earlier this month.
The ranger found the two private fire crews “had individuals working under visas,” and "contacted Border Patrol to conduct the (visa) verification," the spokesperson said.
The crews, Oregon-based Arden Solutions and Table Rock, were assigned Aug. 27 to a " Community Hazard Reduction Project" in a remote location with limited or no cell service. They were told to cut wood for the community.
A report by a Border Patrol agent included in court filings states that agents working at the Port Angeles Border Patrol Station received a request for assistance from BLM and that BLM rangers “were conducting worksite inspections of fire crews" in the area of Shelton, Mason County.
BLM rangers “escorted ( Border Patrol) Agents to the fire crew worksite,” according to the report.
The immigration groups' petition on behalf of Hernandez stated federal agents blocked firefighters' egress from the staging area, divided them up and were "whistling at them like they were dogs.
Federal agents demanded “documents and evidence of immigration status” from firefighters, the filing states.
After examining a firefighter’s identification, agents would state the person was “cleared” or label them as “good,” according to the filing.
When a Border Patrol agent confronted Hernandez, he provided his Red Card, demonstrating his qualifications as a wildland firefighter. He pleaded the Fifth Amendment when asked what country he was born in.
“The officer’s response was to laugh and say 'That's a good one,’ ” according to the filing.
A Border Patrol agent handcuffed Hernandez and told him that he was under arrest but did not tell him why, according to the filing. “When asked, (the agent) replied ‘because you’re here illegally,’ ” according to the filing.
Border Patrol had determined based solely on Hernandez’s race that he was in the United States without legal immigration status, the filing states.
After waiting about three hours during the Border Patrol’s questioning and an additional hour handcuffed on the ground, the filing states, agents transported Hernandez to a Border Protection station in Ferndale, Whatcom County, about 200 miles from the arrest site.
His attorneys did not know where he was being held and were denied contact with their client. In an Aug. 28 letter to U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, the attorneys said after a Border Patrol news release came out about the arrests, they called Customs and Border Protection in Bellingham.
“The CBP attendant refused to confirm our client’s detention location or grant us access,” Stephen Manning, the executive director of Innovation Law Lab, wrote in the letter.
When they called again, Manning wrote, a CBP attendant confirmed Hernandez was being transferred to ICE custody but would not grant the attorneys access.
Hernandez told officers he wanted to speak with his attorney, the filing states, but each request for a phone call was denied.
“They stopped him without reasonable suspicion, arrested him without probable case, ignored the laws governing warrantless arrests,” his attorneys stated in court documents, “arrested him in the midst of a natural disaster despite his pending U Visa application, denied him calls to counsel, and detained him for two weeks without considering him for release or even indicating what law authorized his detention.”
Seattle Times staff reporter Conrad Swanson contributed reporting.
© 2025 The Seattle Times. Visit www.seattletimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.