Thread: Border agent says there's nothing to do. (updated)

Border agent says there's nothing to do, says money is being wasted


By Patrick Oppmann, CNN

September 5, 2011 9:16 a.m. EDT

Port Angeles, Washington (CNN) -- On Washington state's remote and wooded Olympic Peninsula, major commotion is usually limited to a log tumbling off an overloaded lumber truck.

But lately the peninsula has been roiled by a noisy debate over the expansion of a Border Patrol station in Port Angeles, a three-hour car and ferry ride away from the U.S.-Canadian land border.

The U.S. Border Patrol is spending nearly $6 million to renovate a Port Angeles building that could house up to 50 of its agents.

Prior to the attacks of September 11, 2001, four agents were stationed in Port Angeles, a city of about 20,000 people some 15 miles across the Strait of Juan de Fuca from Canada.

"It's not needed, there's nothing for them to do up here," said Lois Danks, a local writer and organizer of Stop the Checkpoints, which last month staged a small protest near where the Border Patrol's new station is being built.
She says border agents "drive around and hassle people without any reasonable suspicion of anything except for possibly the color of their skin."

"They park across the street from Hispanic grocery stores and taco stands and watch who comes and goes," according to Danks.

Border Patrol officials deny they target any specific community and say that beyond enforcing immigration laws, they guard the peninsula from drug smuggling and terrorist threats.
Whistle-blower's accusations

In 1999, Ahmed Ressam was stopped by a customs officer at the Port Angeles ferry crossing trying to bring explosives into the country from Canada. Ressam was later convicted of terrorism charges.

Border Patrol officials say most people who live in Port Angeles and the small towns that dot the peninsula support their efforts.

But recent criticism that further ignited the debate came from an unexpected quarter: one of the station's own agents.
There's nothing to do," Border Patrol agent Christian Sanchez said during a July event in Washington on government whistle-blowers. "There are no gangs or cross-border activity. I haven't seen it."

Sanchez told the not-for-profit Advisory Group on Transparency he never intended to become a whistle-blower, but decided to speak out publicly after he felt his complaints about the Port Angeles station's "lack of mission" were being brushed aside by supervisors.

Sanchez told the panel he ran afoul of supervisors for refusing overtime he didn't feel he was entitled to since, he said, there was so little work to do.

"The taxpayers are paying us all this extra money to do nothing on this peninsula, where it's a water-based border," Sanchez said during the panel discussion. "It's a burden on the taxpayers right now especially with the economy, with Medicare being cut, with the foreclosures."

Through his attorney, Sanchez turned down CNN's requests for an interview.

His attorney, Tom Devine of the Government Accountability Group, which specializes in whistle-blower cases, said Sanchez still works at the Port Angeles station but has requested a transfer back to the U.S. border with Mexico, where he had previously patrolled.

Devine said Sanchez feared more reprisals like the kind that he said took place after he began criticizing the Port Angeles station.

"Retaliation has increased," Sanchez told the panel on whistle-blowers. "My family has been terrorized, vehicles have been driving by, my mail has been opened."

Henry Rolon, the deputy chief of the Border Patrol sector that oversees the Port Angles station, said he was unable to comment on Sanchez's case due to an ongoing investigation.

But Rolon rejected Sanchez's statements that Port Angeles agents are "bored" and "without a mission."

"Agents in Port Angeles have a very important mission and there's lots to do," Rolon said. "You have to go out there, you have to patrol within the community, on the border. Otherwise you are not going to be there when an incident occurs."

It's not clear how many incidents are handled specifically by Port Angeles agents, since the agency does not release statistics for individual stations, according to Border Patrol spokesman Rhett Bowlden.

But last year, the Blaine Sector -- which includes the Port Angeles station and four major land border crossings -- apprehended 673 people and confiscated 1,897 pounds of marijuana, 270 pounds of Ecstasy, 3 pounds of cocaine, and 1 ounce of heroin, Bowlden said. There are currently 327 agents stationed in the sector, including an estimated 40 at Port Angeles.

Clallam County Sheriff Bill Benedict said he sympathized with the Port Angeles border agents because they didn't have enough to do.

"I know (the Port Angeles section's) activity. I think they made less than 20 arrests last year," Benedict said during a May community meeting, the Peninsula Daily News newspaper reported.

"I feel a little sorry for the Border Patrol because it is a very lonely, boring job."

Michael Cox, head of the Border Patrol agents' union, rejected that position -- pointing out that "it's a different kind of work environment" from many other jobs.

"You've got to investigate, you've got to use your brains," said Cox, president of the Northwest Region for the National Border Council. "We have hundreds of miles to protect."
Going on patrol

Port Angeles' supervisory agent Jose Romero was eager to show some of those miles of territory during a recent five-hour "ride-along" given to CNN.
The tour started in the Border Patrol's current headquarters, the cramped basement of the downtown Port Angeles federal building.

"It's a little tight in here," Romero said, walking through the warren of empty cubicles with papers stacked high on the desks. If Sanchez was in the office that day, he was nowhere to be seen.

Outside, Romero climbed into an unmarked SUV and headed out onto the peninsula's
one-lane roads.

As he drove, Romero pointed out paths leading to marinas, unmarked "logging trails" and small airports.

All were potential smuggling hotspots, Romero explained.

Being a Border Patrol agent on the peninsula involves coordinating with a mishmash of local and Native American tribal police forces, he said.

The Border Patrol's work on the peninsula sometimes takes on aspects of local police work, according to Romero. Agents often lend their search dogs to police operations and respond to car accidents or when huge logs come flying off timber-hauling rigs, he said.
As the unmarked SUV cut through the thick fog in a wooded area, Romero asked, jokingly, "You're not scared of vampires?"

He was referring to the nearby logging town of Forks, the setting for the "Twilight" vampire series.

Pulling into a small marina, Romero again turned serious.

Ten miles in front of us -- through the haze -- was the Canadian coastline. A few vacationers kayaking in bright orange life vests clashed against the deep blue waters.

"Can somebody land here?" Romero asked. "Very possible. Somebody lands in a Zodiac-type boat, watercraft, Jet Ski, they hike it up the road or have a vehicle waiting for them, load it up -- whatever contraband it is, human, narcotics," the Border Patrol agent said.

"And just like that, they are gone."
http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/09/05/border ... .spending/

She says border agents "drive around and hassle people without any reasonable suspicion of anything except for possibly the color of their skin."

"They park across the street from Hispanic grocery stores and taco stands and watch who comes and goes," according to Danks.

Taco stands at the Northern Border Peninsula yeah! I'd have to say they're embedded deep in the Homeland, any deeper and they'd be Eskimo's!

But lately the peninsula has been roiled by a noisy debate over the expansion of a Border Patrol station in Port Angeles, a three-hour car and ferry ride away from the U.S.-Canadian land border.

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Relocate these bored-to-tears BP agents to the Mexican Border and they will change their tune in just a few hours.

Sanchez told the not-for-profit Advisory Group on Transparency he never intended to become a whistle-blower, but decided to speak out publicly after he felt his complaints about the Port Angeles station's "lack of mission" were being brushed aside by supervisors.

that's the Obama Plan. He can create an open border and never fire a single BP agent. He can allocate the resources in a way that makes them ineffective. He did the same thing in the South. He pulled agents off the border and told them to watch outbound traffic.

Dixie

Originally Posted by Dixie

Sanchez told the not-for-profit Advisory Group on Transparency he never intended to become a whistle-blower, but decided to speak out publicly after he felt his complaints about the Port Angeles station's "lack of mission" were being brushed aside by supervisors.

that's the Obama Plan. He can create an open border and never fire a single BP agent. He can allocate the resources in a way that makes them ineffective. He did the same thing in the South. He pulled agents off the border and told them to watch outbound traffic.

Dixie

======================================

'The Dictator' pumped automatic weapons into the Mexican drug cartels to use an excuse to curtail 2nd Amendment Rights for American citizens.

Either you are for us or against us.

'The Dictator' is against us.

Remote US Border Patrol described as 'waste' of taxpayer money


Posted: Sep 05, 2011 7:38 AM PDT Updated: Sep 05, 2011 7:38 AM PDT

PORT ANGELES, WA (CNN) - A remote US Border Patrol station on the northern border is under the microscope after an agent described it as a "black hole" and a "waste" of taxpayer money.

In Washington State's Olympic peninsula, an increasing number of border patrol agents keep watch for smugglers, drug traffickers, terrorists and illegal immigrants. Border Patrol Agent Jose Romero says agents not only patrol, they have to remain vigilant.

"They have a lot to do in terms of gathering their own intelligence and analyzing their own ideas and concepts about where the smuggling might be occurring," he said.

But another agent stationed there says agents aren't guarding much of anything at all. He says they're "bored."

"Up in the Northern border there's nothing to do," said Border Patrol Agent Christian Sanchez. "There are no gangs, or cross-border activity - I haven't seen it. "It's rare in the two years that I have been there. A lot of the agents are stir crazy."

Sanchez spoke in July at a Washington D.C. conference on government whistleblowers. He said millions of dollars for the new facility and a tenfold increase of agents since 9/11 are a waste of federal spending.

"The taxpayers are paying us all this extra money to do nothing on this peninsula, where it's a water-based border," he said.

The Border Patrol wouldn't comment on Sanchez or his allegations that other agents retaliated against him for speaking out. But they say agents have plenty to do.

"The challenges they have is tremendous. We've had individuals who have tried to exploit vulnerabilities," Border Patrol Agent Henry Rolon explained. "So that's why we are there. We are there to protect America, to make America safe."

The Border Patrol says they need a strong presence on the peninsula because about 15 miles away lies the Canadian coastline. The Border Patrol says anyone from terrorists to drug smugglers could take advantage of the largely uninhabited shores to sneak into the country.

But critics of the Border Patrol complain agents have mainly targeted migrant workers from Mexico and Central America.

"They park across the street from Hispanic grocery stores and taco stands and watch who comes and goes and sometimes follow them to see where they live," said Lois Danks of Stop the Checkpoints.

Despite criticism, the Border Patrol says plans to bolster its presence on the peninsula are moving forward.

Agent and self-described whistleblower Sanchez still works for on the peninsula, but his attorney told CNN he is seeking a transfer to guard the more active US-Mexico border.

www.wtvm.com

Response promised soon on Border Patrol agent's claims about 'black hole,' misuse of federal funds

September 15, 2012
By Paul Gottlieb
Peninsula Daily News


Border Patrol Agent Christian Sanchez stands outside the Black Ball ferry terminal in Port Angeles in September 2011.

PORT ANGELES — The federal government will respond “fairly soon” to claims by U.S. Border Patrol Agent Christian Sanchez that the agency's Port Angeles station is a “black hole” of inactivity and is misusing federal funds, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman said.

“There will probably be an announcement about that fairly soon from [Washington,] D.C.,” said Mike Milne, a spokesman for the agency that oversees the Border Patrol, on Friday.

“At some point in the near future, there will be a decision made.”

Sanchez was working in the detention area of the new Border Patrol facility on Friday when the building had its grand opening and reporters were given a tour of the facility.

One of 42 agents covering Clallam and Jefferson counties, Sanchez's claims likely were referred to Office of Special Counsel, Milne said.

“That's generally where these types of complaints go,” he said.

Sanchez trained a national spotlight on the North Olympic Peninsula on July 29, 2011, when he made a lengthy statement at a forum put on by the Advisory Committee on Transparency, a project of the nonprofit Sunlight Foundation.

“During our work shifts, other agents and I always talked about how coming to work was like the black hole, swallowing us up slowly with no purpose, no mission,” Sanchez said.

The Border Patrol has come under criticism from some North Olympic Peninsula citizens for increasing its staffing more than tenfold since 2006, while other residents say they support the agency's efforts.

Refused requests

The Border Patrol has refused repeated requests by the Peninsula Daily News — including those made under the Freedom of Information Act — for arrest totals for the Port Angeles station, which covers a territory that includes Clallam and Jefferson counties.

The Border Patrol's Blaine Sector Office, which oversees the Port Angeles branch, releases brief details of selected arrests for Blaine, the north Puget Sound and the North Olympic Peninsula that do not include the names of those arrested — or their gender — and has cited national security concerns in refusing to release more detailed statistics.

Sanchez, who transferred from San Diego to Port Angeles in 2009, went public after he said he had a long-running feud with the Port Angeles station.

In his prepared statement before the transparency committee, Sanchez said he told supervisors that there was nothing for him to do and that “our station was misusing federal funds.”

He said he and his family, including his two daughters, were subjected to “ugly harassment” by federal officers that included staking out his house and following him and his family when he wasn't working.

On Labor Day 2011, CNN reported that Sanchez had requested a transfer back to the southern border.

Response promised soon on Border Patrol agent's claims about 'black hole,' misuse of federal funds -- Port Angeles Port Townsend Sequim Forks Jefferson County Clallam County Olympic Peninsula Daily NEWS