EDITOR’S NOTE — There will be a full story on this in the Peninsula Daily News and www.peninsuladailynews.com on Sunday, including details of Sanchez’s statement.
PORT ANGELES — A U.S. Border Patrol agent says he was punished for refusing unearned overtime pay at the patrol’s station in Port Angeles — and called the station a “black hole” where there is little work to do and where agents have “no purpose, no mission,” according to The Washington Post.
The agent, Christian Sanchez, said that after he refused to take overtime for doing no work, his bosses responded by suggesting he get psychological help, the Post reported.
Instead, Sanchez said he has become a whistleblower, and on Friday he read a statement at a Washington, D.C., meeting of the Advisory Committee on Transparency, a project of the nonprofit, nonpartisan Sunlight Foundation. The committee and the foundation work for greater openness in government.
The Post said Sanchez is an example of what the Government Accountability Project, a whistleblower advocacy organization, calls “pocketbook whistleblowers.” They allegedly have suffered retaliation for actions that could save the government money.
“The worst fraud on taxpayers is that we are getting paid overtime not to work,” Sanchez said in his statement, according to the Post.
When he first started working at the station, “I noticed it was common practice for everyone to get paid overtime not to work. Back then there were about 24 agents and our entire station was receiving at least two hours of Administratively Uncontrolled Overtime.”
Now, he said, there are more than 40 agents in Port Angeles, according to the Post.
Sanchez said there was little work to do at the Port Angeles station, according to the Post. In his statement he called it a “black hole” where agents have “no purpose, no mission.”
Sanchez contends that his Border Patrol bosses “want to create their own kingdom. The spending is to expand bureaucratic turf, not to protect our nation.”
After speaking out against the unnecessary overtime, Sanchez said in his statement he became a target of harassment.
Days off were not allowed, he said, temporary assignments as shift supervisor were denied and urine drug tests were ordered.
“The most ironic harassment,” he said, “has been removing my duties as chaplain [at the Port Angeles station in the downtown Federal Building].”
Asked for comment by the Post, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection said it “does not comment on specific cases. We take all allegations of wrongdoing seriously and fully cooperate with the investigating authorities.”
To read the Washington Post story: http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/border-patrol-whistleblower-pays-price-for-refusing-overtime-pay/2011/07/28/gIQAg9isfI_story.html
