From Stark
A Port Angeles-based U.S. Border Patrol agent who made national headlines for refusing overtime pay is now back on the job, according to this story from the Peninsula Daily News, via AP.
Among other things, Border Patrol agent Christian Sanchez says officers in the Olympic Peninsula community were routinely expected to work paid overtime even though they had little or nothing to do. Here’s a report from the Washington Post.
Via this link, the PDN also provides the complete text of Sanchhez’s remarks to the Congressional Transparency Caucus in Washington, D.C. It’s worth a read. He says 40 employees now do the work that was once handled by four, and the staffing is still increasing.
Federal immigration enforcement has been making some waves on the peninsula for many months. While there are those who welcome the increased immigration enforcement, including highway checkpoints, there are also those who resent the intrusion and the occasional disruption of labor-intensive forestry work. That kind of work, like agricultural work, attracts a significant amount of illegal immigrant labor.
No surprise here. Border Patrol is arguably the most bloated agency of the federal government. The amount of money we’re wasting on them along the Canadian border is galling. It’s the height of absurdity that the U.S. and Canadian governments can’t work collaboratively to secure the northern portion of our shared continent. But since we’re scared of our own shadows these days, we’re content to keep pouring taxpayer dollars onto Border Patrol agents to sit around and watch the grass grow. Ironically, the same tea partiers and Republicans who regularly bash compensation for teachers and other public employees think that injecting more money into the Border Patrol is just peachy keen.
To assist the Border Patrol in Whatcom County, Sheriff Elfo is using deputies, on overtime, to patrol the northern border area (called Operation Stonegarden). Cost to taxpayers: remember the “nearly 6 million dollars” his campaign is bragging about taking from the Federal Govt.
Port Angeles is not the only northern border station looking to expand:
Erie Station- similar to Port Angeles in that it is separated from Canada by water.
Note: reports of the expansion at Erie include numbers of arrests out of that station:
“The Border Patrol operations in Erie, nearly six years old, include more than 30 agents who apprehended 588 illegal immigrants in fiscal year 2008-09.”
“The Border Patrol’s apprehensions in the Erie area have grown steadily, from 332 in fiscal 2006-2007 to 588 in 2008-09 to 305 so far in 2009-10.
Of those apprehended so far this fiscal year, 136 were individuals found by other law enforcement agencies and turned over to the Border Patrol.”
Why are the people of Pennsylvania provided with justification for their new US Border Patrol station- while the people of the Olympic Peninsula get news blackouts and a denied FOIA request?