SEATTLE — Oregon firefighter Rigoberto Hernandez was released from the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma this week and is back home, his attorneys say.

U.S. Border Patrol agents arrested Hernandez and another wildland firefighter four weeks ago while they were working the Bear Gulch Fire on the Olympic Peninsula. At the time, it was the largest wildfire burning in Washington.

In a statement after the arrests, Border Patrol said it had arrested the firefighters for being in the country illegally. Hernandez’s attorneys, at the Innovation Law Lab and the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, filed a federal lawsuit Friday on behalf of Hernandez, seeking his release.

The attorneys argue that Hernandez was wrongfully arrested and that immigration authorities violated his constitutional

See Full Page