Former El Paso border patrol guards Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean are in a dangerous situation. Both are currently serving 11 and 12 year prison sentences for the non-fatal shooting of Osvaldo Aldrete Davila, who was attempting to smuggle drugs across the border into the U.S. The agents shot Davila in the rear end as he tried to run away from the agents who were attempting to arrest him. The agents then allegedly tampered with the evidence and records involved in the altercation.
As a result, the border agents were put on trial and sentenced to grossly innappropriate prison sentences based, in part, on the testimony of Davila. According to a Fox News report, "In exchange for his testimony against the two agents, Davila was granted immunity from prosecution by the U.S. government for attempting to smuggle nearly 750 pounds of marijuana, which had a street value of more than $1 million, into the United States on the day he was shot. He was treated in a U.S. hospital and is now suing the federal government for $5 million."
So basically, the drug runner, caught red-handed trying to smuggle drugs into the U.S. while also illegaly crossing the border got off scott-free, while two agents who were simply trying to do their job, got in serious trouble with the government. Now admittedly, the agents made some mistakes. No one is disputing their wrong-doing, but the punishment does not fit the crime in this case. In fact, it's a very unfair punishment. But the story doesn't end there.
On Saturday, border agent Ramos was beaten by other prison inmates (who just happen to be illegal immigrants of the Hispanic variety). Ramos' family reports that the inmates were yelling "Maten a la migra" which translates to "kill the border patrol agent". The conservative political action group Grassfire.org has been actively involved in this case, calling on President Bush to pardon the two agents.
"Our government has betrayed these agents," said Grassfire president Steve Elliott. "And now they have put these men in mortal danger. I am frightened for the lives of these two family men. This is beyond outrage, and I am calling on grassroots Americans to express their outrage directly to the White House — demanding the president pardon agents Ramos and Compean before it's too late."
Representative Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) has also been involved. On Jan 17th, Hunter requested that both agents be placed in isolation from the rest of the prison population for their own safety.
"The assault against agent Ramos clearly demonstrates the severe risk involved with incorporating Border Patrol agents into general prison populations," Hunter said in a statement Tuesday. "An overwhelming number of federal inmates are non U.S. citizens who have been apprehended by the Border Patrol. The danger to agents Compean and Ramos was immediately apparent and the attack against agent Ramos could have been prevented."
Hunter went on to say, in response to the assault on Ramos,
"Placing these two agents in general population, especially when assuring Congress it would not happen, constitutes an enormous dereliction of duty by the Administration and the Bureau of Prisons," said the Feb. 6 letter to Bush. "The families of agents Compean and Ramos deserve an immediate response. Further, please ensure that segregation from general population occurs immediately."
Hunter and groups like Grassfire.org are absolutely right. The punishment for these two border patrol agents does not fit the crime. It is excessive and based on the testimony of a criminal caught in the act. Yes, mistakes were made. But now it is time for President Bush to stand up for these two agents and pardon them, or at the very least request a far less severe sentence, while insisting on the protection of these two federal agents. It's the right thing to do and it's already been too long. It may be a matter of life and death.
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There's more. WorldNetDaily has been following the case, and now it turns out there's a DHS memo documenting that there were two supervisors and five other agents on the scene when the the two now-convicted agents fired on the bad guy. The supervisors should have been the ones to file the reports, not the agents. And the smuggler has ties, I believe, to the prosecutor. It's a mess, but it's becoming more and more clear that these agents were railroaded into prison, against department policy. The Border Patrol's punishment for failure to report a shooting (which is what these guys were found guilty of doing) is something administrative. Not prison.
Thanks for raising this issue.
There is a lesson to be learned here. And as it often is, in the Bizarro World of Borders and Illegals... It's the wrong lesson.
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