Patty Murray, the Washington senator, has called for the Trump administration to provide “immediate answers” about reports that two firefighters were detained by border agents as they were responding to a wildfire in the state.
Federal immigration authorities on Wednesday staged an operation on the scene of the Bear Gulch fire, a nearly 9,000-acre (3,600-hectare) blaze in the Olympic national forest, where they arrested two people who were part of a contract firefighting crew, the Seattle Times first reported. The fire is the largest currently burning in the state.
Authorities made the firefighters line up to show ID, the Seattle Times reported. One firefighter told the newspaper that they were not permitted to say goodbye to their detained colleagues.
“I asked them if his [co-workers] can say goodbye to him because they’re family, and they’re just ripping them away,” the firefighter said to the Seattle Times, adding that the federal agent swore and told the firefighter to leave.
The operation sparked widespread condemnation in the state. Murray in her statement released on Thursday morning demanded information about the whereabouts of the firefighters and the administration’s policy around immigration enforcement during wildfires.
The Trump administration’s immigration policy was “fundamentally sick”, Murray said. She continued: “Trump has wrongfully detained everyone from lawful green-card holders to American citizens – no one should assume this was necessary or appropriate.”
The US border patrol later on Thursday released some information on the operation, saying that it had assisted the Bureau of Land Management after that agency requested help after terminating contracts with two companies following a criminal investigation.
While verifying the identities of contract personnel, federal agents identified two people “present in the United States illegally”, the border patrol said in a statement, including one person who had a previous order of removal.
The agency did not provide more details about the nature of the criminal investigation and the identities of the firefighters have not been made public.
Authorities arrested the men on charges of illegal entry, and escorted 42 others off federal lands, according to the border patrol statement.
The US Forest Service said in a statement that it was aware of the border patrol operation and that the activities did not interfere with firefighting efforts.
Murray in her statement said the president had been undercutting firefighting abilities in other ways, including by “decimating” the US Forest Service. The administration significantly cut budgets and staffing at the agencies that manage much of the country’s federal lands, leaving the US unprepared for this year’s fire season, the Guardian previously reported.
“Here in the Pacific north-west, wildfires can [burn] and have burned entire towns to the ground. We count on our brave firefighters, who put their lives on the line, to keep our communities safe – this new Republican policy to detain firefighters on the job is as immoral as it is dangerous,” said Murray, who has represented Washington in the US Senate since 1993.
“What’s next? Will Trump start detaining immigrant service members? Or will he just maintain his current policy of deporting Purple Heart veterans?”
Nearly 430 personnel are responding to the Bear Gulch fire on the state’s Olympic peninsula. Firefighters told the Seattle Times that two contract crews had been sent to cut wood and were waiting for a supervisor when federal law enforcement arrived in the area.
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