Port Angeles to be site of new border air and marine substation
By Paige Dickerson, Peninsula Daily News
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The new substation for Customs and Border Protection Air and Marine Services will patrol the Strait of Juan de Fuca from the air and water's surface, Deputy Chief Patrol Agent Joseph Giuliano said Thursday.
The substation has already been approved, but Customs and Border Protection — an agency of the federal Homeland Security Department — is now figuring out where it will be located, who and how many people will staff it and where to park a boat now in St. Augustine, Fla.
In many cases, these types of stations are joined with other entities, such as the U.S. Coast Guard, another Homeland Security agency.
"We aren't really sure yet where it will be located or when," Giuliano said.
The air and marine personnel, along with aircraft and patrol boats, will join 24 Border Patrol agents who are already stationed in Port Angeles.
The 24 agents are an increase from the four who were stationed in Port Angeles only two years ago.
Canadian border beefed up
Out of the Border Patrol's 16,371 agents nationwide, 1,470 have been deployed on the Canadian border from the North Olympic Peninsula to Maine.
That force will grow to 2,200 by 2010, he said.
"The president asked for 6,000 new agents along the northern border, and that expedited our plan," Giuliano said.
The new personnel with Air and Marine are not under the Border Patrol.
The agency is more like a sister under the Customs and Border Protection banner.
"They will help by patrolling the San Juan Islands and the Strait of Juan de Fuca," Giuliano said.
The agency has the right to board and search any watercraft in U.S. waters, he said.
How the water and air patrols will affect the Border Patrol's mission is unclear, he said.
"If it turns out what they are doing has a significant impact on us, we might do more [highway] checkpoints or do fewer — it just depends on what the results are," he said.
25 arrests at checkpoints
Border Patrol roadblocks on U.S. Highway 101 north of Forks and on state Highway 104 near the Hood Canal Bridge have netted 25 arrests since they were stepped up about a month ago, Giuliano said.
The checkpoints currently must be within 100 air miles of an international border, said Michael Bermudez, spokesman for Border Patrol's Blaine sector, of which the North Olympic Peninsula is part.
Another requirement for the checkpoints is that they must be a funnel into the United States — meaning it must be a way for people to move from the border to continue into the country, he said.
"That makes Highway 101 perfect for that," he said, indicating how the highway loops along the border of the North Olympic Peninsula and moves on into the rest of Washington.
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Reporter Paige Dickerson can be reached at 360-47-3535 or paige.dickerson@peninsuladailynews.com.
Last modified: October 02. 2008 9:00PM