DOBBS: The case of former Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean are under appeal. As we've reported here, those agents were prosecuted by the Justice Department for shooting and wounding an illegal alien Mexican drug smuggler who was given immunity by the Justice Department for his testimony. Those agents serving 11 and 12- year sentences.

Members of Congress, even presidential candidates, try to seek justice for those agents.

Casey Wian has our report.

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CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Former Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean remain in federal prisons in Mississippi and Ohio, serving 11 and 12-year sentences for shooting Mexican drug smuggler Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila. But they have not been forgotten by lawmakers considering immigration reform.

REP. DANA ROHRABACHER (R), CALIFORNIA: It behooves us to remember that Border Patrol agents Ramos and Compean are at this very moment languishing in solitary confinement in a federal prison.

WIAN: By supporters working on their appeals...

ANDY RAMIREZ, FRIENDS OF THE BORDER PATROL: We're talking amnesty for 20 million illegal aliens. Well, this government has already shown their preference to give amnesty to narcotic traffickers. You have got a doper running around who may get a check for $3.7 million. That's Aldrete-Davila. And yet, Jose Compean, Ignacio Ramos are sitting in prison.

WIAN: Even presidential candidate Duncan Hunter mentioned the case during Tuesday's Republican debate.

HUNTER: I will tell you a couple of transcripts I have looked at, and that's the agents Compean and Ramos, who were given 11 and 12 years respectively for stopping a drug dealer bringing 750 pound of drugs across the border. I've looked at their transcript. I would pardon Compean and Ramos right now.

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HUNTER: And let me say...

WIAN: The agents' appeals were filed last month, and each claims at least a dozen errors were made during their trial. They include Judge Kathleen Cardon's (ph) ruling preventing jurors from hearing details of Davila's drug-smuggling activity, which continued while he was under immunity from U.S. prosecutors; the mandatory 10-year prison term for using a gun to commit a crime -- that law was intended for drug traffickers, not law enforcement officers -- and the treatment of Border Patrol policy violations as criminal offenses.

Both appeals claim that cumulative effect of the errors cast doubt on the fundamental fairness of the agents' trial. Federal prosecutors have 30 days to respond to the appeals but have requested a routine extension.

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WIAN: Ramos' wife says he has lost 40 pounds and is struggling in prison. Compean's wife will make her first trip in four and a half months to see her husband in prison later this week. Behind the scenes, lawmakers are trying to persuade the Bureau of Prisons to transfer the former agents to safer facilities where they won't require solitary confinement -- Lou.

DOBBS: An outrageous, outrageous prosecution, and outrageous miscarriage of justice against both these agents. It is despicable that the president of the United States has not intervened against his attorney general who sought this prosecution, which many believe is straightforwardly an appeasement of the Mexican government.

And it is completely unreasonable that Democratic members of Congress have not joined on and Republican members of Congress have not joined on to the petition to provide congressional immunity. It's disgusting.

WIAN: It sure it. And a lot of supporters of these two agents are disgusted with the promises that they received from Congress that there would be hearings into this case. Those hearings, of course, have not happened yet -- Lou.

DOBBS: And, you know, I have to increasingly say, I'm not surprised at anything that this Congress does, whether led by Republicans or Democrats, that fails to uphold either the tradition nor the principles nor the values of this country. This certainly is the case in which all were violated.

Thank you very much.

Casey Wian.

WIAN: OK.