ICE releases Oregon firefighter arrested last month during Bear Gulch Fire

Source: Oregon Public Broadcasting/NPR

Sept. 24, 2025 1:52 p.m. Updated: Sept. 24, 2025 7:45 p.m.


An Oregon firefighter who was arrested by immigration agents while battling a wildfire last month has been released and is back home, his attorneys announced Wednesday.

Rigoberto Hernandez Hernandez, 23, said he is glad to be back home after multiple Border Patrol agents appeared at a work camp at the Bear Gulch Fire in Washington’s Olympic Peninsula on Aug. 27. Those agents then arrested Hernandez and another firefighter.

Although Hernandez’s legal team had been pressing his case in federal court for weeks, the release surprisingly came without an order from a judge. Instead, it came mere days after his lawyers demanded U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement free him. “I’m glad that I am home and I am excited to see my family,” Hernandez said in a statement. “So many people stepped up to help, and now I want to help others just like they helped me.”

Attorneys had filed a habeas corpus petition demanding Hernandez’s release in federal court last week. While a judge hadn’t ruled on that petition, attorneys for the U.S. government on Tuesday filed to dismiss the case. There had been no rulings as of Wednesday.

Read more: https://www.opb.org/article/2025/09/24/firefighter-border-patrol-washington-released-ice/