Thread: New Numbersusa Fax for Ramos & Compean

Dear Faxer:

Urge Conferees to Free Border Agents Ramos & Compean

This new fax has been posted in your Action Buffet based on your answers to the Interest Survey.

You can find this fax by proceeding to
http://www.numbersusa.com/faxes?ID=9241


U.S. Representative Tom Tancredo recently wrote a letter to members of the House and Senate charged with working out the final details on legislation funding the annual operations of the Department of Commerce, Department of Justice and science related programs. In a letter today, Tancredo urged the members to retain a provision of the House-passed bill that would free imprisoned Border Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean from federal custody.





Send a fax to your Member(s) of Congress who is on Conference Committee and ask him/her keep the Poe Amendment to the House version of the bill. This amendment prohibits Federal money being used to incarcerate Agents Ramos and Compean; this would result in their release from prison.





Background

On October 20, 2006, Border Patrol agents Jose Alonso Compean and Ignacio Ramos were sentenced to 12 and 11 years in prison, respectively, after having been found guilty in March on charges of causing serious bodily injury, assault with a deadly weapon, discharge o f a firearm in relation to a crime of violence, and a civil rights violation - although three jurors later claimed they were coerced into voting guilty in the case.



On November 16, 2007, drug smuggler Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila was taken into custody by DEA agents for drug smuggling incidents which took place in 2005. You can read about it here.



You can find more about the show trial and sentencing below:





Click here to read more about the sentencing.

Agents Compean and Ramos were charged after an incident on February 17, when Ramos and Compean pursued illegal alien drug-smuggler Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila and shot him in the buttocks as he fled. The agents later found more than 800 pounds of marijuana in the van that Aldrete-Davila abandoned.

Click here to read Agent Ramos' version of the story.

Agent Ramos, recently a nominee for "Agent of the Year," failed to report the shooting - believing, at the time, that he had missed Aldrete-Davila - a failure that usually results in a temporary suspension from border patrol duties.

Instead, the Department of Homeland Security sent an investigator from the Office of Inspector General to Mexico and offered Aldrete-Davila immunity in exchange for his testimony against the agents. Aldrete-Davila has been granted full immunity and is now suing our Federal government for $5 million for civil rights violations.

At the trial, Assistant U.S. Attorney Debra Kanof argued that the agents had violated Border Patrol policy and Aldrete-Davila's civil rights, saying, "Agents are not allowed to pursue. In order to exceed the speed limit, you have to get supervisor approval, and they did not."

Andy Ramirez of the nonprofit group Friends of the Border Patrol says, "This is the greatest miscarriage of justice I have ever seen. This drug smuggler has fully contributed to the destruction of two brave agents and their families and has sent a very loud message to the other Border Patrol agents: "If you confront a smuggler, this will happen to you."

Click here for the Friends of the Border Patrol website.

T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, says, "The administration is trying to intimidate front-line agents from doing their job. If they can't do it administratively, they'll do it with trumped-up criminal charges," and adds that he is "outraged and at a loss to explain why there were so many irregularities in this case. The only thing that is clear is that the prosecutors pointed their guns at the wrong guys, the good guys, and they let the bad guy walk. Now they want to send these agents to prison for doing their jo b. That offends me, and I believe most Americans would agree."

Click here for more of T.J. Bonner's response.

Click here for the Border Patrol Council's website and more video/audio clips.

Ramos and Compean are WORTHY of our DEEPEST respect and appreciation for the GREAT sacrifice they are making as PERSECUTED patriots for the sake of US, their FELLOW Americans!