Lawyers for one of the two firefighters arrested while working on a contract crew at a wildfire in Washington state said Friday that they have not been able to speak with him, nor determine where he is being held — two days after he was taken into custody. 

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Lawyers for one of the two firefighters arrested while working on a contract crew at a wildfire in Washington state said Friday that they have not been able to speak with him, nor determine where he is being held – two days after he was taken into custody.

Border Patrol agents arrested the two firefighters Wednesday after the Bureau of Land Management requested the Port Angeles Border Patrol Station to check the identities of 44 members of two work crews assigned to the Bear Gulch Fire on the state’s Olympic Peninsula, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol said

After authorities said they determined that two workers were not in the U.S. legally, and one had a previous order of removal, the pair was taken into custody and brought to Bellingham Station, CBP said

Attorneys for one of the firefighters said they later learned that their client was transferred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody

Democratic lawmakers reacted with alarm and condemnation to the immigration enforcement amid ongoing efforts to contain the blaze, which began July 6 and as of Friday afternoon, was 13% contained

“We demand his immediate release,” Innovation Law Lab said in a statement, calling on the Department of Homeland Security to “stop concealing his whereabouts, honor his constitutional right to due process, and grant him access to his attorney.” 

Border Patrol agents arrested the two firefighters Wednesday after the Bureau of Land Management requested the Port Angeles Border Patrol Station to check the identities of 44 members of two work crews assigned to the Bear Gulch Fire on the state’s Olympic Peninsula, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol said. 

After agents determined that two workers were not in the U.S. legally, and one had a previous order of removal, the pair was taken into custody and brought to Bellingham Station, CBP said. 

The other 42 people who were part of the contracted firefighting crews were escorted off federal lands, officials said. Contracts with the two Oregon companies — Table Rock Forestry Inc. and ASI Arden Solutions Inc. — were also terminated “following the conclusion of a criminal investigation” by the Bureau of Land Management, according to CBP.

Messages left with both companies were not immediately returned. It was unclear if the investigation stemmed from the immigration enforcement actions or had been initiated prior. A public affairs specialist with the Interior Department — which the BLM is a part of — declined to clarify.

“Inquiries initiated on the Bear Gulch Fire are ongoing with the appropriate agencies, and we have no further comment at this time,” the spokesperson said. 

Additionally, a spokesperson for the CBP declined to provide additional information when asked about the investigation as well as the whereabouts of both arrested firefighters Friday. 

Attorneys for one of the firefighters said they later learned that their client had been transferred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody. 

In a letter sent Thursday to Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden, Innovation Law Lab founder and Executive Director Stephen W. Manning said that their client had received a U visa certificate from the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the District of Oregon after he and his family were victims of a crime and cooperated with federal law enforcement. Manning noted that his client had been waiting for the adjudication — or formal decision — on his U visa application since 2018. 

“Our client came to the United States for a better life when he was approximately four years old — about 19 years ago. Accordingly, any charge now is illegal, in bad faith and unsupported,” Manning wrote about his client, whom a spokesperson for the nonprofit law group declined to identify other than saying he had been a wildland firefighter for nearly three years and that Oregon is “his home.”  

Wyden said his office was also trying to determine where the firefighter from his state is being held. He called the arrests an “evil stunt.”

In their statement, federal authorities said that the immigration 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.”

Democratic lawmakers reacted with alarm and condemnation to the immigration enforcement amid ongoing efforts to contain the blaze, which began July 6. As of Friday afternoon, the fire had burned more than 9,000 acres and was 13% contained.

Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson, a Democrat, said that he was “deeply concerned” about the arrests and that he had instructed his staff to find out more information about what had happened. 

And Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., called the administration’s immigration policy “fundamentally sick” in a statement. 

“Here in the Pacific Northwest, wildfires can, and have, burned entire towns to the ground,” Murray said. “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.” 

The Seattle Times first reported on the firefighters’ arrests.