see also: in May 2008:   Deputy Chief of the Border Patrol Announces State of the Agency   CBP Celebrates Significant Occasions at Advanced Training Center in West Virginia   CBP to Issue New Frequent Traveler Cards   Ecstasy and Methamphetamine Seized at Ambassador Bridge   CBP Races to Secure NASCAR’s Monster Mile   CBP Air and Marine Agents Interdict Migrants in Florida at the Start of Memorial Day Weekend   Border Patrol Agents Rescue 51 Illegal Aliens from Tractor Trailer ...more on cbp.gov:   CBP News Releases   Press Officers

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Sumas, Wash. - U.S. Customs and Border Protection Sumas port of entry welcomed a special entrant into the United States on April 30 with honors befitting the occasion. CBP Field Operations officers and Border Patrol agents lined the entry lane in solemn remembrance as a moving memorial to fallen law enforcement officers crossed over from Canada under escort by members of the Abbotsford, British Columbia Police Department. The memorial is a specially swathed Hummer H3 bearing the names of U.S. and Canadian officers who have sacrificed their lives in the line of duty.

The event, "Drive to Remember" was inspired by Allison Eales whose father, Trooper Rocky Eales of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol SWAT, was killed in the line of duty in 1999. Allison, then in sixth grade wrote a letter to her father bearing the words "My Daddy a Hero" and placed it at the National Law Enforcement Memorial in 2005. Publishers of a law enforcement magazine saw it and inspired by her words began this memorial event touring from Vancouver, BC to Los Angeles then eastward to Washington, DC.

Among the fallen officers memorialized since 2006 are Officer Joselito Alvarez Barber of Seattle Police Department (PD), Officer Edwanton Allen Thomas of Brier PD, Deputy Steve E. Cox of King County Sheriff Office (SO), Constable John David Goyer of Abbotsford PD, Deputy Michael Estes of Walla Walla SO and Officer Adam Joseph Menuez of Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribal PD.

CBP personnel honored on the memorial include Senior Patrol Agent (SPA) Nicholas D. Greenig, SPA David N. Webb, Border Patrol Agent (BPA) Ramon Nevarez, Jr., BPA David Tourscher, Air Interdiction Agent (AIA) Clinton B. Thrasher, BPA Richard Goldstein, AIA Robert Smith, BPA Eric N. Cabral and AIA Julio E. Baray

U.S. Customs and Border Protection is the unified border agency within the Department of Homeland Security charged with the management, control and protection of our nation's borders at and between the official ports of entry. CBP is charged with keeping terrorists and terrorist weapons out of the country while enforcing hundreds of U.S. laws.