Immigration officials have arrested two firefighters as a large fire in Washington state rages on.
A spokesperson with the Forest Service, an agency of the Department of Agriculture, told HuffPost that it is “aware of a Border Patrol operation” at the Bear Gulch Fire in the Olympic National Forest, located on the state’s Olympic Peninsula, west of Seattle.
Customs and Border Protection claimed in a statement Thursday that the two firefighters are being held at the Bellingham Border Patrol Station near the Canadian border and face charges of illegal entry and reentry of removed aliens. The agency did not identify the firefighters by name.
“There have been no impacts to firefighting efforts and progress continues to be made on containment,” the CBP statement continued.
The Bear Gulch Fire has been burning since early July. Forest Service Law Enforcement and Investigations is currently investigating the cause of the fire, which is believed to be human-caused. As of Thursday morning, the fire was 8,960 acres large and 13% contained, according to an incident information management system known as InciWeb.
According to the CBP statement, the two firefighters were detained after the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service requested help from Border Patrol in verifying the identities of 44 contractors on firefighting work crews.
“Several discrepancies were identified, and two individuals were found to be present in the United States illegally, one with a previous order of removal,” according to CBP.
The agency claimed that the operation did not inhibit firefighting and hailed the “cooperative effort” between federal agencies.
“U.S. Border Patrol steadfastly enforces the laws of the United States and unapologetically addresses violations of immigration law wherever they are encountered,” USBP Blaine Sector Chief Patrol Agent Rosario P. Vasquez said in the statement.
The move marks a departure from the 2021 wildfire season, when the Department of Homeland Security indicated that immigration enforcement would not occur “where disaster and emergency response and relief is being provided” unless there were urgent circumstances.
It comes as the Trump administration’s racist mass deportation policies have swept up immigrants without criminal histories despite claims that the efforts would target “dangerous criminals” and “the worst of the worst.”
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) argued that arresting the two working firefighters was “as immoral as it is dangerous.”
“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. This administration’s immigration policy is fundamentally sick,” she said in a statement on Thursday. “Trump has wrongfully detained everyone from lawful green card holders to American citizens—no one should assume this was necessary or appropriate.”