The past of one of the Oregon firefighters detained while fighting the Bear Gulch Fire makes his situation more complicated, his brother acknowledged.
INDEPENDENCE, Oregon — Oscar Cruz Estrada says he’s struggling to understand why his older brother, who was fighting the Bear Gulch Fire in Washington, is now sitting in federal custody.
Jose Bertin Cruz Estrada was among two firefighters arrested by U.S. Border Patrol agents Wednesday during an identity check requested by the Bureau of Land Management. Jose, who works for ASI Arden Solutions, had been called up a week earlier to help on the fire lines as a sawyer, cutting through logs and clearing brush.
Oscar said he got the call around 2 p.m. that his brother had been detained.
“They just showed up, demanded papers,” he said he was told.
Jose’s past complicates his case. He was born in Mexico and moved to the U.S. in 2003. In 2013, he was arrested and charged with racketeering, delivery of methamphetamine and conspiracy to commit a felony. He was deported to Mexico, tried to return through Texas, and after being detained for 7 months, was deported again.
Oscar said his brother stayed in Mexico until 2019, when he returned to Oregon. Since then, he said Jose has turned his life around, starting a lawn maintenance business in Independence, raising his son and working steady jobs.
“I’m not going to sit here and defend and say my brother was perfect. No, he wasn’t. He got in trouble. He paid his dues. He had a sentence. I feel like he suffered two different jails: being locked up and essentially being locked out from his own family,” Oscar said.
He said Jose’s most recent arrest has shaken both their family and the firefighting community.
“I’ve been firefighting since I got out of high school; I’ve never heard of anything like that happening at all. To me, it doesn’t make any sense,” he said.
Oscar said he fears his brother could be deported again, leaving behind his son and his business in Oregon.
“For me personally, my biggest fear is my brother going back and not having any of us there,” he said.
As of this week, Oscar said the family hasn’t been given answers: “I guess we’re all just waiting to see what happens next. He hasn’t really heard much; we haven’t really heard much other than they’re just holding him there.”
The family says it is trying to raise enough money to hire a lawyer to get to Tacoma to help Jose.
