Thread: Border agent's wife at State of the Union

I didn't see her either but you can bet Bush was told she was there and he avoided getting anywhere near her.

Originally Posted by cvangel

I didn't see her either but you can bet Bush was told she was there and he avoided getting anywhere near her.

I hope he felt the bad karma from her and others.

I just found this article on the Daily Bulletin by Sara A. Carter:

http://www.dailybulletin.com/news/ci_5068947

Wife of convicted Border Agent to attend State of the Union
By Sara A. Carter, Staff Writer
Article Launched: 01/23/2007 02:07:16 PM PST

The wife of a convicted Border Patrol agent was invited Tuesday by a California congressman to attend the president's State of the Union address.

Monica Ramos, the wife of former Agent Ignacio "Nacho" Ramos of El Paso, Texas, who began serving a sentence of 11 years last week for the nonfatal shooting of a Mexican drug smuggler, was asked to be the guest of Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Huntington Beach, who has vehemently defended the agents publicly.

"I think the president has been informed that I will be part of the audience," Monica Ramos said. "Besides being his spouse and his best friend, I can only be his voice up here. He is innocent and he is a hero."

She will be escorted tonight into the Capitol by some of the 76 congressional representatives who have asked President Bush to pardon the agents.

Earlier today, Monica Ramos, along with her husband's attorney Mary Stillinger, met with more than 20 congressional members and aides to discuss the case of her husband.

"They really care," she said. "What has happened to my husband is an injustice. This is an honor but I wish it was under different circumstances. I hope one day my husband will be the one to come out here soon and to shake the hands of these honorable
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men."

The symbolic gesture to invite Ignacio Ramos' wife to the State of the Union came on the heels of the president's first remarks last week regarding the two agents.

Bush promised to review the case of the agents, leaving the door open for a probable pardon.

Ignacio Ramos and his co-worker, Border Patrol Agent Jose Alonso Compean, were convicted last spring for a confrontation they had with Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila, a known Mexican drug smuggler, on the Texas/Mexico border.

On Feb. 17, 2005, Ramos and Compean shot the Mexican national after a car and foot chase along the Texas-Mexico border. Aldrete-Davila, who was struck in the buttocks, had fled a van the agents were pursuing; the van later turned out to be holding more than $1 million worth of marijuana.

Both agents have told the Daily Bulletin that they believed the smuggler had a gun.

The smuggler is now suing the Border Patrol for $5 million for the shooting and for violations of his civil rights. He was given immunity by the Texas U.S. Attorneys Office to testify against the agents.

Since the paper broke the story in August, three jurors have come forward to say they were coerced into finding the agents guilty.

Compean's wife met with congressional representatives last month in Washington, D.C.

Monica Ramos, who visited her husband Friday in prison, said she was shocked when she saw him. Her husband was shackled and spending 23 hours a day separate from other prisoners with only one hour for phone calls and television.

"My kids got to talk to him last night by phone," she added. "Nothing I can possibly say will prepare them to see their father in shackles."

White House officials could not be immediately reached for comment.

http://www.dailypilot.com/articles/2007 ... dana24.txt

Invitation is meant to prod president
Upset that 2 border agents haven't been pardoned, lawmaker invites agent's wife to State of the Union.
By Alicia Robinson

Jan 23, 2007
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher invited the wife of a convicted Border Patrol agent to Tuesday's State of the Union address, hoping to increase the pressure on President Bush to pardon the man and another agent.

The agents, Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean, began a prison sentence Jan. 17 after being convicted of shooting a drug smuggler who later claimed he was unarmed.

Rohrabacher, who represents Costa Mesa, said he invited Monica Ramos to the speech as his guest so the president could see her face-to-face. The agents' families are being "driven into destitution" by the conviction, Rohrabacher said — the Compeans lost their home, and both families lost their health insurance.

"We have two families whose lives are being obliterated because the president is too stubborn, perhaps too arrogant to look at what the justice department has done," Rohrabacher said.

Bush has said he will consider the request for a pardon. That move, Rohrabacher said, "is after incredible pressure. The fact is we could have talked this out quietly months and months ago."

Inviting Monica Ramos is "an interesting sort of preventive move" by Rohrabacher, probably aimed at Bush's immigration policy, said Louis De Sipio, a political science professor at UC Irvine.

The president was expected to talk about comprehensive immigration reform Tuesday, but Rohrabacher and some other Republicans have opposed any plan that includes a guest-worker program.

"My take is he [Bush] wants to be remembered for something," De Sipio said. "Immigration is probably it because there's a bipartisan consensus, at least in the Senate."

Members of the Minuteman Project, an anti-illegal-immigration group, rallied at Rohrabacher's Huntington Beach office Tuesday afternoon to show support for his stance on the agents' case, a spokeswoman for Rohrabacher said.