for their extended family. Family is broken up, six deported with one child who is an American citizen.

The Forgotten Victims of the California Wildfires: Undocumented Migrant Workers


Andrea Guerrero of the San Diego Immigrant Rights Consortium says law enforcement deported evacuees and checked identifications of evacuees fleeing fires.

Thousands of people are beginning to return home as the wildfires across Southern California slowly die out. But for the thousands of undocumented migrant workers in San Diego's lucrative agriculture industry, the process is fraught with the threat of harassment and deportation.

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This was further exacerbated, as you pointed out, by the deportation of a family of evacuees that had been encouraged to take supplies back home, because they didn’t know what they would find back home. And upon exiting the evacuation center, they were apprehended by city police. They were alleged with looting; they were not formally charged. Border Patrol was called in. Border Patrol undertook an immigration inspection and then ultimately deported them. This created even more apprehension among the documented and undocumented immigrants at Qualcomm Stadium and has led to an overall climate of fear and apprehension. In certain instances, there were families inside Qualcomm Stadium who were afraid to leave, and those -- there were those who left and didn’t take any supplies, much-needed supplies, because they were afraid that they also would be subject to an immigration inspection. There are many more who never came to an evacuation center, because of all of this that they were hearing about.

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ANDREA GUERRERO: My understanding is that there were only seven deaths in this fire, and that in itself is remarkable. That’s a credit to the first responders, the firefighters, etc., given the scope of this fire. However, four of those were immigrants. We don’t know if they were documented or undocumented. We don’t know the circumstances of their death. But that’s over half.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid...

Oh, and thanks to the volunteer firefighters of Tijuana who crossed the border to fight the fire!