Federal law enforcement actions at the scene of an active wildfire in Washington state have county, state and federal officials trying to figure out how to prevent similar incidents in the future.
On Aug. 27, while actively deployed as firefighters on the Bear Gulch Fire, federal agents stopped and demanded identification from over 40 firefighters and eventually arrested two.
The Bear Gulch Fire, located on the Olympic Peninsula, has now grown to over 20,000 acres in size.
“ It was dangerous to do, and it made things more dangerous when these firefighters were taken out of the equation,” said Wayne Fournier, a Thurston County commissioner. Fournier is working on a county ordinance to prevent this from happening again.
One of the firefighters, Rigoberto Hernandez, was released from immigration detention in September. Hernandez’s attorney filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Border Patrol, claiming that federal agents had no lawful basis to detain Hernandez.
According to The Seattle Times, the other firefighter is still detained at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma.
Fournier’s ordinance, if adopted, would ensure law enforcement has to coordinate with incident commanders in the county during an emergency before pursuing any enforcement actions.
“Nothing's gonna stop a hundred troops from coming in and stopping us from putting out a fire,” Fournier said. “But it is gonna say that there needs to be coordination because it is a dangerous situation. We don't wanna make it worse.”
Fournier said the aim would be to create civil liability if a federal agent is acting outside of their scope of work. The ordinance is under legal review with the Thurston County prosecutor.
Leaders from multiple counties in Washington are working to determine whether similar ordinances could be replicated in their counties.
Megan Dunn, a Snohomish County councilmember who is working with Fournier and other elected officials on this matter, said she is concerned that the arrests at the Bear Gulch Fire could have a chilling effect, preventing people from becoming first responders.
“ It's really critical that our first responders feel that they're able to be there and enter (the) community and not have any type of risk from immigration or the threat of some kind of immigration response,” Dunn said.
Washington state Rep. Lisa Parshley is working on a bill similar to Fournier’s ordinance.
The details haven’t been finalized, but Parshley said her upcoming bill would require any sort of law enforcement action to go through incident command. This would give incident command control to determine when such enforcement can take place.
“ We need to be able to give that command and those working for them the certainty that their plans are not gonna be disrupted,” Parshley said.
Beyond the public safety and workplace protections lawmakers are trying to ensure with these pieces of legislation, Parshley said, there are questions over how federal agents are handling immigration enforcement.
She said she is concerned about the firefighter who is still being held in detention, and others who have been arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at their workplace.
“ I'm concerned that due process is not clearly happening and that the people that get swept up in some of these immigration, ICE actions, are not getting due process,” Parshley said.
The Department of Homeland Security released guidance in 2021 prohibiting these kinds of enforcement actions when there is an active emergency. An Aug. 29 letter from members of Congress asks if this guidance is still in place.
U.S. Rep. Emily Randall has introduced a federal bill that would prohibit ICE, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and other federal agencies from conducting immigration enforcement at active disaster and emergency response locations.
It would also prohibit these actions on evacuation routes, at emergency shelters and supply distribution sites, disaster assistance registration sites and family reunification centers.
