PORT ANGELES, Wash. (AP) — The office of U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks says staffers want to meet with the Border Patrol’s top supervisor in the region to discuss the agency’s staffing and mission on the Olympic Peninsula.
The Peninsula Daily News reports (http://bit.ly/rv2SAk ) that the meeting request comes after a Port Angeles-based Border Patrol agent claimed in an address to an open-government group that the agency’s station there is a “black hole” where there is little work and no purpose or mission. The agent, Christian Sanchez, said there are now more than 40 agents assigned to Port Angeles — more than 10 times as many as there were in 2006.
Border Patrol agents on the peninsula often assist law enforcement on traffic stops with backup and translation help. They’ve also stopped drivers and boarded public buses on the North Olympic Peninsula to ask for identification in searches for illegal immigrants, and that’s upset people in the community.
An agency spokesman says the Border Patrol’s sector chief, John C. Bates, is happy to meet with congressional staff members. No date has been set.
