He was was not working as an EMT or firefighter that we know of. He had received TRAINING as such Cal Fire academy graduate and EMT student at Shasta College and he it was stated in multiple articles that he "DREAMED of being a first responder".
He is NOT certified by the State of California for any EMT role.
Verification
It is unknown if he had employment outside of his academic program which his family may well have been providing for (including living expenses, if they were so able).
The info on the cash is limited. That one aspect of this still has me wondering if he took it to go away, but why not take his wallet?
The earrings, my thought, is he found them somewhere, school/home/car, assumed he knew who they belonged to and tucked them into his pocket to return them. Just my opinion. None of his friends have mentioned a girlfriend.
Despite what the media reports, ICE isn't just snatching tons of random people off the streets and those taken into detainment are entered into a database so if you know their country of birth you can easily see if they were apprehended,
not necesesarily where they are AT now, but that they indeed were picked up. LE would't alert ICE just because of a traffic accident involving a single passenger/single vehicle accident not anywhere near the border. (i.e. suspected human smuggling). He is currently NOT in the ICE Database, I checked that first thing.
His friends said he wasn't known to hike or climb. Dispersed camping is illegal in national parks except in VERY remote areas, and then it's not conducive to groups due to limitations on access to food/water/supplies, etc. So I don't see a large group of immigrants living up in the high county that he would have known ahead of time were there to meet up with.