Jones, Myrick Want Agents Kept Free

Thirty eight House members, including North Carolina Reps. Walter Jones, R-3rd, Robin Hayes, R-8th, and Sue Myrick, R-9th, on Wednesday urged U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to direct prosecutors not to oppose a motion that would keep two convicted Border Patrol agents out of prison, pending their court appeals.

The agents, Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean, were convicted of shooting an illegal alien in the buttocks after he fled from them in February 2005. The suspect, Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila, had carried 743 pounds of marijuana across the U.S. border near El Paso, Texas.

Ramos and Compean were sentenced Oct. 19 to 11 years and 12 years, respectively. They are scheduled to begin serving their time Jan. 17.

The legislators announced their appeal, sent in a letter to the attorney general, at a press conference on Wednesday, which Jones sponsored with six other lawmakers.

“We as members of Congress remain seriously concerned over the apparent misdirected and overreaching federal prosecution of two distinguished U.S. Border Patrol agents who were doing their job protecting America’s borders from an illegal drug smuggler,” the 38 congressmen wrote. “We respectfully ask for your immediate intervention in this case and to not oppose a motion filed in court that will keep these men from having to report to prison next week.”

In recent months many of the same legislators (including Jones and Myrick) pleaded for intervention by President Bush and from House leadership in the cases of Ramos and Compean. In October they asked the president to grant the two agents a pardon. Last month they requested that the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration conduct a hearing on the two convictions. Neither appeal was granted.

In the letter to Gonzales, dated Jan. 8, the members of Congress cited flaws in the Department of Justice’s case against the border agents as reasons for allowing them to stay free pending appeal.

“There remain several discrepancies in the government’s case against agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean which strongly question whether justice was served,” they wrote. “For example, they were convicted mainly on the testimony of a habitual Mexican drug smuggler, who was sought out and given immunity by federal prosecutors to testify.

“Also, there is insufficient proof as to whether or not the drug smuggler was armed that day and in fact threatened Ramos and Compean, forcing them to fire their weapons to protect themselves.”

Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, who led the effort to collect the signatures of the 38 legislators on the letter, said the agents were victims of an overzealous prosecutor.

“The two border agents should have been given medals and sent back down to the border to apprehend another drug dealer instead of being prosecuted,” Poe said. ”This is yet another example of how our government is more concerned about illegals and drug dealers than they are about America and Americans.”

According to a report on the Web site of the Lincoln (N.C.) Tribune, Myrick and some other members of Congress met with Compean on Jan. 9.

“It is tragic that these men were convicted for doing their job,” Myrick told the Tribune. “Here are two men who put their lives on the line for our country, yet the government turned their back on them. That’s un-American.”