Two of North Carolina’s Republican congressmen on Tuesday requested a presidential pardon for two convicted border patrol agents who are scheduled to enter federal prison in January.

Third District Rep. Walter Jones and 9th District Rep. Sue Myrick joined 10 other congressmen, including House Immigration Reform Caucus Chairman Tom Tancredo of Colorado, to ask President Bush to investigate the cases of Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean. The agents were convicted of shooting an illegal alien in the buttocks after he fled from them. The suspect, Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila, had carried 743 pounds of marijuana across the border near El Paso, Texas.

Ramos and Compean were sentenced on Oct. 19 to 11 years and 12 years, respectively, in federal prison. They are scheduled to begin serving their time Jan. 17. Both are appealing their verdicts.

The congressmen defended the agents, saying they were properly carrying out their duties.

“During this case there have been numerous questions raised about the accuracy of the charges against the agents, the conduct of the prosecutor, and whether the drug smuggler was armed and dangerous at the border,” the letter from the congressmen read.

According to a report in the Inland Valley (Calif.) Daily Bulletin, in February 2005 Ramos and Compean pursued Aldrete-Davila, whom Ramos believed was brandishing a gun and was threatening the agents. Ramos shot the smuggler as he fled back into Mexico.

“According to the U.S. attorney who successfully prosecuted the agents,” the newspaper reported, “the man they were chasing didn’t actually have a gun; shooting him in the back violated his civil rights; the agents didn’t know for a fact that he was a drug smuggler; and they broke Border Patrol rules about discharging their weapons and preserving a crime scene.

“Even more broadly, Assistant U.S. Attorney Debra Kanof said, Ramos and Compean had no business chasing someone in the first place.”

Aldrete-Davila was granted immunity in order to testify against the two border patrol agents. They were convicted of assault with a deadly weapon; discharge of a firearm in relation to a crime of violence; assault with serious bodily injury; and a civil rights violation, the Daily Bulletin reported.

Ramos had been nominated for the Border Patrol Agent of the Year Award early last year.

“We are confident that during such an investigation you will find that these border patrol agents were acting within the scope of their duty and were unjustly prosecuted,” the congressmen’s letter to the president said. “Also, we ask that you use your power of Presidential Pardon…to pardon these two border patrol agents. We understand these requests usually are for those that have already completed their sentences; however we feel in this case it would be a miscarriage of justice to send these two border patrol agents to prison for protecting our nation’s borders from an illegal drug smuggler.”

Tancredo, a high-profile leader in Congress on immigration reform, criticized the Department of Justice’s handling of the case.

“This is clearly a case where the punishment does not fit the crime,” he said in a statement. “These men were handed an unfair sentence for shooting a dangerous criminal, while the drug dealer gets to go back home.”

Paul Chesser ([email protected]) is associate editor of Carolina Journal.