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A US Border Patrol agent working at the Port Angeles station on the U.S./Canada border says he's bored because there just isn't anything to do aside from remaining vigilant. At the border station on Washington state's remote and wooded Olympic Peninsula, major incidents usually come in the form of a log tumbling off an overloaded lumber truck or a moose that's caught in a fence.
Now local residents say they are having difficulty adjusting to the expansion of the Port Angeles Border Patrol station. The U.S. Border Patrol is spending nearly $6 million to renovate a Port Angeles building that officials say will house up to 50 of its agents.
Prior to the attacks of September 11, 2001, just 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. That group was instrumental in thwarting a very credible terror threat that came in the form of a van loaded with explosives.
The driver, Ahmed Ressam had planned to drive the van to Los Angeles and bomb Los Angeles International Airport.
You would think that local residents would be pleased to see all the new federal law enforcement personnel working to keep America safe. But according to a report by CNN, that's just not how the locals feel at all.
"It's not needed and there's nothing for them to do up here," Lois Danks, a local writer told CNN.
Danks said without any terrorists trying to gain entry into the U.S. from Canada, border agents "drive around and hassle people without any reasonable suspicion."
"They park across the street from Hispanic grocery stores and taco stands and watch who comes and goes," according to Danks.
In 1999, Ahmed Ressam was stopped by officers with U.S. at the Port Angeles ferry crossing. He was 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 surround the area are supportive.
But according to CNN, recent criticism that further ignited the debate among the locals came from one of the station's own agents.
"There's nothing to do," Border Patrol agent Christian Sanchez said during an event in Washington on government whistle-blowers last summer. "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 ignored.
Sanchez told the panel he ran afoul of supervisors for refusing overtime he didn't feel he was entitled to because there was so little to actually 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.
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.
Clallam County Sheriff Bill Benedict told CNN 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."
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