Border Patrol arrested firefighters as they were battling a wildfire

The immigration raid by Border Patrol agents on an active fire scene shocked many veteran wildland firefighters. Several of them said they could not remember a similar episode happening in the past. And some worried that such enforcement efforts would distract firefighters working in strenuous environments and have a chilling effect among a workforce that relies heavily on immigrant labor.

“Firefighting is a difficult, dangerous job and firefighters need to keep their focus on the fire,” said Dale Bosworth, a former chief of the U.S. Forest Service. “We don’t need to have those kind of distractions. It’s dangerous.”