PORT ANGELES — Twice a day, Border Patrol officers step onto buses operated by Olympic Bus Lines at the company’s Discovery Bay stop between Port Angeles and Port Townsend.
They check for terrorists, contraband and illegal immigrants.
The bus checks began late last year along with Border Patrol checkpoints on North Olympic Peninsula thoroughfares that started in August 2008.
But there hasn’t been a checkpoint in Clallam or Jefferson counties since Sept. 9, Border Patrol Supervisory Agent Christopher Dyer said Monday after giving a status update on agency activities to the Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce’s Monday luncheon program.
Not necessary
North Olympic Peninsula and Washington, D.C.-based Border Patrol officials told Peninsula Daily News in April that the checkpoints hadn’t been necessary for several months, and there haven’t been any more since then, Dyer said.
“I’m sure they will happen again,” Dyer said, adding he couldn’t say when, nor did he have access to the total number of Border Patrol arrests since the agency stepped up its enforcement last fall.
Dyer said the bus checks have been successful in producing arrests of mostly illegal immigrants whose visas have expired or who have committed some other kind of immigration violation.
The Border Patrol is looking for suspects traveling into the country’s interior, and Olympic Lines travels to Seattle twice a day.
“At the beginning, we were getting a steady flow of apprehensions, but it’s just trailed off,” Dyer said.
“There is a deterrence effect created by our presence there.”
Olympic Bus Lines passengers appear to have become ho-hum to the boardings.
Company owner Jack Heckman said Monday he has not received any complaints from passengers in the last several months.
“I haven’t gotten one call about that, absolutely nothing,” Heckman said.
The bus boardings will continue indefinitely, Dyer said.
Complaints
Although U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks’ North Olympic Peninsula constituents have complained about the boardings, which prompted a letter to Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, the Border Patrol has the legal authority to conduct them, Colin Sheldon, Dicks’ legislative assistant, said Monday.
“We haven’t been able to get much past that,” Sheldon said.
Dyer told the audience of about 100 at the Port Angeles CrabHouse that “the vast majority” of illegal immigrants “are coming across to feed their families.”
Some, though, have a darker side brought to light by getting arrested.
Of 876,404 Border Patrol arrests in the United States in 2007, more than 11,000 were related to dangerous offenses, Dyer said.
The total also included 465 sex offenders and 304 who had been arrested in the United States for murder.
No profiling
Dyer was asked if the Border Patrol profiles suspects before questioning them, a practice the courts have ruled is illegal.
In his letter to Napolitano, Dicks, D-Belfair, said the “suggestion” of profiling was a common thread in the complaints he had received.
“The U.S. Border Patrol does not profile. That’s the bottom line — we don’t profile,” Dyer told the Chamber audience.
About 20 of those in attendance raised their hands when Dyer asked who had been through a checkpoint.
As a vehicle approaches a checkpoint, “the agent watches everything,” Dyer said, including the demeanors of drivers and passengers.
Most checkpoint stops last from 10 seconds per vehicle to less than two minutes.
A Border Patrol Agent must have “reasonable suspicion” a person has committed a crime to go beyond questioning, Dyer said.
Legal searches
Under this legal principle, an officer can search people and their vehicles but cannot arrest them without evidence.
The four North Olympic Peninsula checkpoints last fall lasted four hours each and netted a total of 15 arrests.
“That’s one arrest per hour, which I see as a very successful endeavor,” Dyer said.
New headquarters
Suspects would be taken to a new headquarters for the Border Patrol if the agency leases property in the Port Angeles area, Border Patrol spokesman Doy Noblet said Monday.
The facility would include jail cells to incarcerate illegal immigrants for up to 72 hours — but more often less than 24 hours — before they are transported to a facility in Tacoma, he said.
“It would be the same as a police station,” Noblet said.
The Border Patrol’s current quarters in the Richard B. Anderson federal building in Port Angeles are too cramped and ill-suited for temporarily holding suspects, Noblet said.
Chamber Executive Director Russ Veenema threw out a suggestion for reducing illegal immigration that drew a blank from Dyer.
“Would illegal crossings go down if marijuana was legalized?” Veenema asked.
Dyer said he doubted that there is “an official Border Patrol position on that subject.”
________
Staff writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
