President Bush Should Quickly Pardon Jailed Border Agents
by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher
Posted 11/05/2007 ET

Unjustly convicted Border Patrol Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean are currently serving 11- and 12-year prison terms, respectively, for shooting and wounding an admitted illegal alien drug smuggler whom they interdicted while he was smuggling $1 million worth of drugs into the United States. Inexplicably, Western district of Texas U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton took the word of the drug smuggler and decided to throw the book at the Border Patrol agents, turning procedural mistakes into felonies.

Star Witness

The U.S. government sent investigators into Mexico to locate the drug smuggler, offer him immunity, free healthcare and unconditional border-crossing cards, in exchange for his testimony against the Border Patrol officers.

Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, prosecutors deliberately misled jurors by portraying the drug smuggler as a victim who needed money to pay for his sick mother’s medicine. They went so far as to have all evidence of a second drug-smuggling incident sealed, prohibiting the jury from ever knowing about the smuggler’s illicit activities while under immunity as the government’s star witness.

The questions surrounding this outrageous prosecution are many and the answers from the Bush Administration are few. For more than a year, members of Congress have repeatedly called on the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security to review the troubling aspects of this case only to have our concerns dismissed with simple form letters. Members have publicly pleaded with the President to pardon the agents and his only response has been to reaffirm his relationship with his “dear friendâ€