Exclusive: Border patrol arrested José Bertin Cruz-Estrada while he was battling a wildfire in Washington. He is now in Mexico, separated from his family in Oregon
José Bertin Cruz-Estrada was responding to a wildfire in Washington state on 27 August when four unmarked vehicles drove up to his crew’s remote location in a national forest.
Cruz-Estrada, part of a team of 20 Oregon-based firefighters, had spent a week hiking through dense terrain, battling smoke and clearing fallen trees and other debris to prevent the Bear Gulch fire, a 9,000-acre blaze, from growing. That morning, they were waiting for a taskforce leader to provide instructions, but Cruz-Estrada quickly realized the men arriving in trucks were not emergency responders.
They were US border patrol agents.
I can’t think of a better encapsulation of how insanely stupid and wasteful this whole witch hunt is than Jóse’s story. This man was risking his life to help save American lives and the border patrol comes in and whisks him away from that job in a bizarre and cruel waste of resources. Fucking idiots.
Seriously, kidnap him after his shift helping people, not during. Seems like common sense.
That would have been even more callous. We’re talking about a human being here.