Firefighter arrested while battling fire is released by ICE in WA, lawyers say
A 23-year-old wildland firefighter who has lived in the U.S. since he was 4 was arrested while battling an ongoing fire in Washington State, then spent weeks detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to his attorneys.
Rigoberto Hernandez Hernandez has now returned to his home in Keizer, Oregon, after attorneys with the Innovation Law Lab and the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project sued the government on Sept. 19, challenging his arrest that led to his ICE detention, the organizations said in a Sept. 24 news release.
ICE released Hernandez from the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, where he was held for nearly a month, on Sept. 23, according to the Innovation Law Lab.
“I am glad that I am home, and I am excited to see my family,” Hernandez said in a statement. “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.”
Hernandez and another firefighter were taken into custody by Border Patrol on Aug. 27, when they were a part of a crew fighting the Bear Gulch fire in the Olympic Peninsula, according to a petition for habeas corpus and a motion for temporary restraining order that demanded his release. The blaze continues to burn in Washington.
Border Patrol agents had no grounds to arrest Hernandez, his attorneys argued in the filing. They accused agents of arresting Hernandez because he is Latino and after he asserted his right to remain silent.
In response to McClatchy News’ request for comment to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and ICE, Border Protection spokesperson Jason A. Givens referred McClatchy News to the Justice Department.
Justice Department spokesperson Natalie Baldassarre declined to comment Sept. 25.
In a Sept. 23 motion to dismiss, DHS declared it was no longer pursuing Hernandez’s removal from the U.S., as the agency “has reviewed the facts and circumstances of the case and determined that circumstances after issuance of the Notice to Appear have changed to such an extent that continuation is no longer in the best interest of the government.”
The motion was filed without prejudice, meaning DHS could choose to pursue Hernandez’s removal in the future.
A DHS spokesperson previously told KATU that Hernandez was a “criminal illegal alien.”
Hernandez, who has Mixtec heritage, was raised by his parents who are migrant farmworkers in California, Oregon and Washington, according to the Innovation Law Lab. The Mixtec is the third largest indigenous group in Mexico.
In 2018, he applied for legal status by seeking a U-visa, but his application is still pending “due to the massive backlogs in government processing,” the Innovation Law Lab said.
Hernandez works as a firefighter for a government contractor, ASI Arden Solutions Inc., and can be sent anywhere in the U.S. to battle fires, according to the lawsuit. His two brothers are also firefighters who joined him to respond to the Bear Gulch blaze.
As of Sept. 19, the fire, which began July 6 and was ignited by human causes, had scorched nearly 19,000 acres in Mason County and was less than 10% contained,The Olympian reported, citing InciWeb.
The lawsuit argues that Hernandez’s arrest on Aug. 27 violated a DHS policy that prohibits immigration enforcement at disaster and emergency response sites, like the Bear Gulch fire.
“Despite the immediate wildfire disaster and the exhaustion of the crew from several days of hiking through steep and wild terrain to suppress fire in the Bear Gulch area, several armed federal agents separated the firefighters on the crew, one by one, demanding documents and evidence of immigration status,” the lawsuit says.
Because Hernandez had asserted his right to remain silent when questioned by agents, they had no reason to suspect that he was illegally in the U.S., according to the lawsuit.
Then, “for more than forty-eight hours, the federal immigration agencies hid Mr. Hernandez from his lawyers and his family, preventing him from calling out and his lawyers from calling in to him,” the filing says.
Officers with the Bureau of Land Management, a part of the U.S. Department of the Interior, were also involved in Hernandez’s arrest, according to his attorneys.
According to the department, a fire incident command team security manager, who is a ranger for the Bureau of Land Management, was investigating suspected time card fraud involving contracted firefighters and learned some had visas.
To verify their visas, the security manager reached out to Border Patrol, according to the Department of the Interior.
“As this is an ongoing investigative matter, we do not have further comment to add at this time,” Department of Interior spokesperson Alyse Sharpe said in a statement.
Matt Adams, the legal director for the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, said in a statement that “While we are thrilled that Mr. Hernandez is back with his family, it is important to remember he never should have been arrested in the first place, let alone left locked up for weeks and only released after he filed a lawsuit in federal court.”
This story was originally published September 25, 2025 at 9:00 AM with the headline "Firefighter arrested while battling fire is released by ICE in WA, lawyers say."
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