Office of Governor Gary Locke
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - October 21, 1999
Contact:  Governor's Communications Office, 360-902-4136

Locke asks Reno to keep three Border Patrol agents in state

OLYMPIA - Gov. Gary Locke today urged U. S. Attorney General Janet Reno to halt the planned reassignment of three U.S. Border Patrol agents to duties outside the state of Washington.

As attorney general, Reno oversees the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Border Patrol.

The reassignment of the three Border Patrol agents is scheduled for Nov. 1.

Locke said keeping the three agents in Washington could help prevent another tragedy, such as the shooting death of State Patrol Trooper James Saunders.

Saunders died Oct. 7 near Pasco after a man arrested on a drug charge was released from jail without being identified as an illegal alien. The man, Nicolas Soloro Vasquez, had been deported three times in the last three years and is now charged with the trooper's murder.

Saunders had stopped Vasquez on a routine traffic check.

"This release might not have occurred if the Border Patrol agent normally assigned to check the status of Pasco jail inmates had not been on a 30-day assignment in Arizona," Locke said in the letter to Reno. "I am concerned about maintaining adequate Border Patrol staff in the Northwest, where illegal immigration is a serious problem."

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