Punished for Doing Their Job
by Sam Antonio
February 19, 2007
As two Border Patrol agents languish in prison, the Department of Homeland
Security is doing its best not to answer charges of wrongful, politically
motivated prosecution.
Sam Antonio is the John Birch Society's national spokesman on immigration.
On January 10, 2007, President Bush, in a prime-time address to the
nation, lobbied for his new Iraq War policy, which included more troops
and strengthening the interior borders of Iraq. This while at home he ignores
securing our own borders and demoralizes our brave men and women of the
Border Patrol who protect it.
Case in point: on January 17, 2007, former Border Patrol agents Ignacio
Ramos and Jose Compean surrendered to U.S. Marshals inside the federal
courthouse in downtown El Paso, Texas. As the agents' family members and
supporters bitterly protested outside the courthouse, Ramos and Compean
were placed in jail cells to begin serving their prison sentences. Agent
Ramos has been sentenced to 11 years, agent Compean to 12 years.
Leading up to the day of the agents' imprisonment was a devastating
23-month ordeal. The agents' families have been bankrupted. They have lost
their homes and are living with relatives. Their children will grow up
without their fathers' guiding hands.
Making matters worse, the two agents are being sent to separate facilities
far from home: Ramos to a prison in Mississippi, Compean to one in Ohio.
This will not only make visits by their families more difficult and expensive,
but will add to the families' anxiety over Ramos, and Compean's safety.
Prisons are especially unfriendly places for inmates who are former law
enforcement officers.
"I'm so utterly exhausted, tired and sad," Patty Compean told the Daily
Bulletin of Ontario, California, on the day that the heavy jail-cell door
slammed shut on her husband. Nevertheless, she said, "I still have a deep
faith in God. I still believe there is hope." Part of that hope is that
President Bush will respond to the urgent requests of dozens of members
of Congress and to the hundreds of thousands of calls, letters, e-mails,
and petitions calling for him to pardon her husband and the husband of
Monica Ramos.
Miscarriage of Justice
What egregious crimes did agents Ramos and Compean commit to land in
this situation? To have their promising careers ended, to be stripped of
their freedom, to be torn from their families, to have their lives put
in danger? They tried to stop a drug smuggler who had brought nearly 800
pounds of marijuana (worth nearly $1 million) across the border from Mexico
in his van. The smuggler, Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila, scuffled with agent Compean,
knocking him down and throwing dirt in his eyes. Compean says that as Aldrete-Davila
ran on foot back toward Mexico, the drug smuggler turned several times
and it appeared that the smuggler was pointing a gun at him. Compean fired
at the fleeing suspect. Agent Ramos, hearing the shots and seeing his battered
and bloody partner, also fired at the smuggler. However, they saw Aldrete-Davila
wade across the shallow Rio Grande to the Mexican side, apparently unhurt.
They watched as he climbed into another vehicle and assumed that their
shots had completely missed him.
Unbeknownst to the Border Patrol agents, one of their bullets had struck
the smuggler in the buttocks. Also unbeknownst to them, Mexican drug smuggler
Aldrete-Davila is a boyhood buddy of Border Patrol agent Rene Sanchez,
a naturalized Mexican who is suspected of ties to the Mexican drug cartels.
Agent Sanchez encouraged Aldrete-Davila to bring a lawsuit against agents
Ramos and Compean for violating his "civil rights." Incredibly, instead
of investigating agent Sanchez and his ties to Aldrete-Davila, agents of
the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
were sent to Mexico to find Aldrete-Davila, offer him immunity and free
medical care, and bring him back to testify against agents Ramos and Compean.
Even more incredible, DOJ and DHS officials have helped Aldrete-Davila
launch a lawsuit for $5 million against the U.S. Border Patrol. A key charge
in the federal government's case against Ramos and Compean is that the
two agents fired on an "unarmed" fleeing suspect: Aldrete-Davila. Agents
Ramos and Compean say Aldrete-Davila was armed. The government says it
has proof he wasn't. Their proof? The testimony of Aldrete-Davila, who
has at least five million incentives to lie!
There are sound reasons for taking the word of these two decorated and
highly regarded Border Patrol agents over that of the drug smuggler. Last
fall, the Daily Bulletin interviewed a member of Aldrete-Davila's family
in El Paso who confirmed that Aldrete-Davila has been smuggling drugs since
he was 14 and "wouldn't move drugs unless he had a gun on him."
While Aldrete-Davila was waiting to testify against Ramos and Compean,
he was arrested attempting to bring another load of drugs into the country.
No problem: the prosecutors set him free again and suppressed mention of
his drug arrest, so as not to harm his courtroom "credibility."
We do not have space here to detail the many other shocking abuses by
federal prosecutor Debra Kanof, Judge Kathleen Cardone, and the Department
of Homeland Security. Many of those were examined in more depth in this
magazine's earlier investigation of this case.* Suffice to say, the offenses
have been serious enough that a bipartisan array of House and Senate members
have called for investigations of the trial and sentencing and have urged
President Bush to pardon the Border Patrol agents.
Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas), who served as a judge for 22 years and a prosecutor
for eight years, expressed the views of many when he charged Kanof with
being an "overzealous prosecutor." "In my opinion," said Rep. Poe, "the
government was on the wrong side. We ought to be more concerned about our
border agents who were put in harm's way, who are shot at by these drug
dealers than we are about the civil rights of the drug smugglers."
Chilling Effect on Border
Andy Ramirez, chairman of the California-based Friends of the Border
Patrol, told The New American that the Compean/Ramos case "is the greatest
miscarriage of justice I have ever seen." Moreover, says Ramirez, it "has
sent a very loud message to the other Border Patrol agents: if you confront
a smuggler, this is what will happen to you."
Other immigration experts agree that the ramifications of the Compean/Ramos
case extend far beyond the personal tragedies of the two agents and their
families; the impact is already having a serious effect on our border security.
Bob Stille, who served 37 years in the Border Patrol and INS, recently
told The New American that the prosecution of Ramos and Compean has sent
shudders through the ranks of the Border Patrol. "As a lifelong Republican
and a conservative Christian, I am outraged that a Republican president
who postures as a conservative Christian would so unjustly prosecute these
two agents for what I see as doing their job." "From comments I have heard
by the present-day agents, there is a serious morale problem in the Border
Patrol."
Stille said, "I am seeing men and women retiring with a minimum amount
of service time. I have also been told that there will be a rash of retirements
this year, many by top staff officers. My impression is that there is a
lot of sadness within the ranks."
Mr. Stille, who spent the last 19 years of his career as a supervisory
agent in charge of four different Border Patrol stations on both the Mexican
and Canadian borders, says: "I attribute the morale problem to the open-border
policy by the Bush administration. I have heard of incidents where agents
are told to look the other way. They are not allowed to arrest illegal
aliens who have gained entry.... We are under an illegal-alien crime wave
in this country and our primary enforcement arm is being restrained from
doing their duty. Or worse, as in the case of Ramos and Compean, going
to prison for doing their duty."
The blow to agent morale is multiplied, says Stille, by the president's
insistence on granting amnesty to millions of illegal aliens and issuing
pardons to street criminals. (See the sidebar on page 16.) "When I read
that President Bush pardoned a bunch of convicted criminals this past Christmas,
some of whom were convicted drug dealers, I was incensed," he told The
New American. "What a slap in the face to the brave men and women in the
Border Patrol when they saw two of their own denied the same."
After receiving enormous pressure from concerned patriotic organizations
and Congress, the White House was forced to respond. While President Bush
primarily regurgitated the same dodges and disinformation that the DOJ
had been dispensing, he did hold out the possibility of a future pardon.
"According to a jury of their peers, these officers violated some standards,"
Bush said, in a January 18 interview with an El Paso TV station the day
after agents Ramos and Compean turned themselves in to federal custody.
"People need to take a tough look at the facts, the evidence a jury looked
at, as well as [the] judge. And I will do the same thing."
But the American people and their elected representatives are taking
"a tough look at the facts" — at least at the facts the Bush administration
has been willing to release. What President Bush and the DOJ are attempting
to keep carefully hidden is that, in addition to the prosecutorial and
judicial abuses mentioned above, three members of the Ramos/Compean jury
say they were misled during jury deliberation. Jurors Robert Gourley, Claudia
Torres, and Edine Woods have said that they did not want to support a guilty
verdict for the Border Patrol agents and would have held out for a hung
jury, except that they were improperly instructed that that was not an
option. They said they were instructed by the jury foreman — who claimed
to be relaying instructions from the judge — that they "must" vote to convict
the agents. The agents' attorneys and members of Congress cited these charges
by the jurors, along with the other alleged improprieties, as cause for
postponing the sentencing of Ramos and Compean while the case is appealed
and while Congress investigates the allegations.
On January 19, Rep. Michael T. McCaul (R-Texas), the immediate past
chairman of the Homeland Security Investigations Subcommittee of the House
of Representatives, sent a letter to his Texas delegation colleagues, urging
them to join his efforts "in uncovering the facts surrounding the conviction
and sentencing" of agents Ramos and Compean. "During the last five months,"
McCaul states in his letter, "due to my deep concern over the fate of these
Agents, I have relentlessly requested information detailing the facts surrounding
this case from both the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector
General and the Department of Justice. To date, both Agencies have defied
the will of Congress and refused to cooperate meaningfully with my efforts
to uncover the truth."
McCaul's letter then details date by date his multiple requests of,
and communications and meetings with, DHS and DOJ officials — and their
string of broken promises, changing stories, and stalling tactics.
The McCaul letter relates a meeting he and three other House members
had on September 28 during which they were briefed by the DHS Deputy Inspector
General and Assistant Inspector General. At the briefing, the officers
of the Inspector General made several serious allegations against agents
Ramos and Compean that they said they would subsequently document for the
congressmen.
One of those charges, according to McCaul, is that "Ramos and Compean
confessed to knowingly shooting an unarmed suspect. Again — they claim
the two agents KNEW he was unarmed when they fired their weapons." Another
charge, says Rep. McCaul, is that "Ramos and Compean stated that day they
'wanted to shoot a Mexican.'"
Agents Ramos and Compean deny these and the other charges made by members
of the Inspector General. However, the DHS Inspector General officers told
the congressmen that the Inspector General's Report of Investigation would
corroborate these charges and that the report would be released on October
23, 2006, the day after the sentencing of the agents. Rep. McCaul and his
colleagues are still waiting for the long overdue evidence, but they now
realize that the administration has "no intention" of providing the promised
report. Rep. McCaul and other Members of Congress also requested (and were
promised) transcripts of the trial around the same time. Like the Inspector
General report, they have been repeatedly stalled on this matter too, and
still have not received the trial transcript.
On January 18, 2007, says McCaul, "I spoke personally to DHS Secretary
Chertoff to express my disbelief and anger that DHS IG has made potentially
misleading claims to Members of Congress and not provided substantiating
documentation as promised." Secretary Chertoff told McCaul that he would
personally speak to Inspector General Skinner. "It is patently clear to
me, after five months of delay by the Department of Homeland Security,
that they have no intention of providing the information I requested to
get to the facts surrounding the case."
National Uproar
In response to the uproar this case has generated, 70 congressmen have
signed on to legislation introduced on January 18 by Congressman Duncan
Hunter (R-Calif.) calling for the convictions of Ramos and Compean to be
vacated and for the two agents be released from custody immediately.
In a press release issued on the introduction of H.R. 563, Hunter said,
"Agents Compean and Ramos fulfilled their responsibilities as Border Patrol
agents and rightfully pursued a suspected and fleeing drug smuggler. It
is irresponsible to punish them with jail time." Rep. Tom Tancredo, meanwhile,
has introduced House Concurrent Resolution 37, expressing "the sense of
Congress that the President should swiftly and unconditionally pardon Agents
Ramos and Compean."
When asked why the White House refuses to intervene on behalf of the
two agents, Andy Ramirez of Friends of the Border Patrol told The New American,
"This administration is so predictable when it comes to everybody but American
citizens. President Bush is always talking about securing Iraq's borders,
securing Afghanistan's borders, but never our borders." Ramirez points
also to the president's State of the Union address on January 23, where
Bush once again employed his trademark immigration double-talk, claiming
to be opposed to amnesty while proposing a legalization program that is
the same thing as amnesty for millions of illegal aliens. In the same address,
President Bush also reiterated his call for a "temporary worker program"
that would bring hundreds of thousands of additional alien workers (and
their families) into the United States, further swamping our already overwhelmed
immigration system.
Perhaps Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) put this whole distorted
scenario into perspective when he stated, "They [the Bush administration]
got their priorities totally backwards. We should be backing up our defenders,
finding reasons to help our defenders, and finding reasons to put the bad
guys away. Our President is treating the bad guys like good guys and the
good guys like bad guys."
Americans still have an opportunity to help insure that this perverse
injustice is reversed, that our government will stop treating these good
guys like bad guys. President Bush is not likely to grant agents Ramos
and Compean pardons out of personal conviction; his inaction in their case
thus far and his actions regarding immigration matters, in general, make
that all too clear. But he may be convinced to do so out of expediency
since he is now under tremendous pressure over the war, the economy, and
other issues, and desperately needs to placate conservatives who have been
his staunchest supporters.
A pardon is important for righting a terrible wrong against agents Ramos
and Compean and their families. It is also vitally important to our nation's
security, as it will send a message to our Border Patrol agents on the
front lines that they can go back to the crucial job of enforcing our borders
and protecting our homeland without fear of being thrown to the wolves.
* See "Betrayed in the Line of Duty" in our September 18, 2006 issue
and online at http://www .thenewamerican.com/betrayedlod.html.
GOP Congressmen Speak
"Today is a day of infamy and disgrace. The policies set down by this
president [are] sending the defenders of our borders to prison while rewarding
illegal alien drug smugglers. Shame on you, President Bush. You have betrayed
us and our defenders." — Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.)
"Due to significant concerns over the circumstances surrounding the
prosecution of agents Ramos and Compean, the House Judiciary Committee
has already recognized the need for a thorough review of this case by calling
for congressional hearings and an investigation of the Department of Homeland
Security, Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol
and the U.S. Attorney's Office." — September 13, 2006 letter signed by
22 congressmen
"If the facts I have laid out are accurate, then this prosecution puts
the rights of illegal alien drug smugglers ahead of our homeland security
and undermines the critical mission of better enforcing current immigration
laws." — Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas)
"All I say is that Mr. President, if you're going to consider Mr. Kennedy's
amnesty for 12 million illegal aliens, couldn't you just add two more border
patrol agents onto that list?" — Rep. Brian Bilbray (R-Calif.)
"Over the Christmas break, the president of the United States pardoned
18 felons. Five of those people were drug dealers.... But we cannot even
get a response to the letters we have sent asking him to pardon the Border
Patrol agents. What greater example of where this president's priorities
are than that?" — Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.)
"The federal government was on the wrong side in this case. This drug
dealer was not just bringing in a little bit of marijuana.... What better
two people should be pardoned than border agents doing their jobs trying
to protect the United States?" — Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas)
Pardons for Drug Dealers
by William F. Jasper
President Bush has thus far ignored the pleas of hundreds of thousands
of Americans who petitioned for pardons for agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose
Compean. However, he has pardoned a number of convicted criminals, including
recently. On December 21, 2006, President Bush pardoned these drug offenders:
• Marie Georgette Ginette Briere — possession of cocaine with intent
to distribute.
• George Thomas Harley — aiding and abetting the distribution of cocaine.
• Patricia Ann Hultman — conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute
cocaine and other controlled substances.
• Eric William Olson — possession with intent to distribute, possession,
and use of hashish.
On the same day, Bush also commuted the sentence of Phillip Anthony
Emmert, who was serving time for conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.
On September 28, 2005, President Bush pardoned these drug offenders:
• Adam Wade Graham — conspiracy to deliver LSD.
• Larry Paul Lenius — conspiracy to distribute cocaine.
• Larry Lee Lopez — conspiracy to import marijuana.
• Mark Lewis Weber — selling Quaalude tablets, selling, using and possessing
marijuana.
On the same day, he also pardoned Jesse Ray Harvey, a United Mine Workers
union member convicted of blowing up mines in West Virginia.
Ex-border agent beaten in prison, family says (5:31 p.m.)
By Louie Gilot / El Paso Times
Article Launched: 02/05/2007 05:20:17 PM MST
Family members of Ignacio Ramos, the former El Paso Border Patrol agent
imprisoned for shooting a drug smuggler in the buttocks and not reporting
it, said Ramos was beat up by other inmates Saturday.
Ramos, who is locked up in a federal prison in Yazoo City, Miss., was
then put in solitary, his father-in-law Joe Loya reported today. Loya said
the other inmates recognized Ramos from a segment about the case on the
television show America's Most Wanted.
Bureau of Prison officials could not be reached for comment this evening.
|