Jerry Seper of the WashTimes reports on undocumented firebugs:

U.S. Border Patrol agents seeking to secure the nation’s border in some of the country’s most pristine national forests are being targeted by illegal aliens, who are using intentionally set fires to burn agents out of observation posts and patrol routes.
The wildfires also have resulted in the destruction of valuable natural and cultural resources in the National Forest System and pose an ongoing threat to visitors, residents and responding firefighters, according to federal law enforcement authorities and others.

In the Coronado National Forest in Arizona, with 60 miles of land along the U.S.-Mexico border, U.S. Forest Service firefighters sent in to battle fires or clear wild land fire areas are required to be escorted by armed law enforcement officers.
Armed smugglers of aliens and drugs have walked through the middle of active firefighting operations, the authorities said.

The Border Patrol’s Tucson, Ariz., sector, which encompasses most of the Coronado National Forest, has the highest incidence of cross-border violators in the nation. Nearly 500,000 illegal aliens were apprehended last year — more than 30,000 a month. In addition, nearly 100,000 pounds of marijuana, with a street value of $200 million, was seized as it was hauled through the Coronado National Forest.

Last month, the Border Patrol — in a single operation targeting illegal aliens causing what Forest Service officials called “significant damage” to the Coronado National Forest — apprehended more than 300 illegals along just a three-mile section of Arizona-Mexico border and confiscated 600 pounds of marijuana in a 10-day period.

Hey, maybe they’ll get their Z visas and the U.S. Forest Service can hire them! What, you think it couldn’t happen? Flashback from May 2007:

Fourteen illegal immigrants were arrested and face deportation after being picked up at an Idaho City hotel.

It happened late Tuesday night and now they’re in the Ada County Jail.

The men were working for a contracted employee of the U.S. Forest Service.

They had been working for about 10 days, with one week left.

According to the Forest Service, the contracted employer is Cutting Edge Forestry Inc. out of Talent, Oregon.

The contractor is required to turn over paperwork regarding their employees and then the Forest Service sends that paperwork to the immigration office.

It’s there that officials realized the men were in the country illegally.

Fourteen of Cutting Edge’s 16 employees on the job site were arrested at the Idaho City hotel for not having proper documentation.

The men were planting 500 acres of the forest, a portion of the 11,000 acres that burned in the Hot Creek Fire back in July 2003.

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