FORKS – Customs and Border Protection agents on Thursday detained seven people thought to be illegal immigrants at the North Olympic Peninsula’s first-ever traffic checkpoint on U.S. Highway 101.
Travelers moving south on the highway between 8 a.m. and noon – including those in a Clallam County Transit bus – were stopped north of Forks and asked if they were citizens and where they were born.
More checkpoints on Highway 101 in Clallam County can be expected in the coming months, said Robert Kohlman, a field operations supervisor in the agency’s Blaine office.
The federal agency, part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, said the checkpoint was part of a nationwide terrorism deterring strategy.
“The checkpoints are part of the national border protection strategy,” Kohlman said.
The seven who were detained were taken to a federal detention center in Tacoma, where they will await removal proceedings, Kohlman said.
Kohlman did not have the names of the people detained on Thursday.
