Illegals Today

Eighty-five percent of the firefighting crews in Oregon and Washington who fight forest fires are Hispanic. No one really knows if they are legal--the assumpution is they are not, but it takes months to check and employers only have to make a good-faith effort. Pew estimates that half of the 300,000 Hispanics in Oregon are illegal, so the percentage is probably about the same for firefighters from that state. But they certainly don't speak English, which can make understanding your crew chief a little dicey. Story here.

We were in Montana (Glacier National Park) in 2003 during the worst fire season in years, and I'm pretty sure we heard at the lodge that the locals were part of the crews and used this gig as extra income. No Americans for these jobs?

This story is being used as one more "what if" we really cracked down. We'd go up in smoke. Just remember the same lame excuses were used to keep slavery going.