Fires affecting Illegal Immigrants

There are large wildfires currently going on in California.Wildfires are not an extremely rare occurance in Caifornia. In 1987 a fire known as the Siege of 1987 was a series of fires that burned 650 thousand acres in northern California and southern Oregon. Resulting from the current fires is the discovery of many illegal immigrants. Four charred bodies were found in a heavily hit area and they were identified to be illegal immigrants. Later people were seen running out of the fires with burns on their hands. Though the areas have been evacuated these people have nowhere to go. Some sought refuge in churches while others turned themselves in and were deported.

Since the fire began more than one hundred people have been arrested. Opponents of illegal immigration have even attempted to place blame for the fires on these people. Officially there is no link between them and the cause, though two men were arrested on arson charges and "are believed to be deportable".

According to rights groups some people had been denied help at shelters because they had no form of legal identification. The identification process is so that those unaffected by the fires do not attempt to take advantage of shelters, but illegal immigrants who are affected by it have no identification. A republican rebuked these claims by saying, “People are dying because we can’t control our border. That’s what they should be screaming about. Anyone who knows the land and the illegal activity in that rugged terrain knows there was no way we would avoid deaths in this.”

Whether you are against Illegal immigration or not, denying people help from a disaster is not a civilizedthing to do. These fires will bring the issue of illegal immigration into the open even more than it already is and provide facts to argue for both sides of the debate.Article from New York Times

Video of forest fires.