Lack Of Pardon For Border Agents Ripped

Washington Times

By Jerry Seper
December 13, 2007

Republican Duncan Hunter bemoaned the pardons of drug dealers while two border agents remain in prison. (Associated Press)

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Several members of Congress derided President Bush yesterday for not including former U.S. Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean among the 29 pardons that he issued this week.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, California Republican and presidential candidate, said that "two names were conspicuously missing" from the list, which included carjackers, drug dealers, a moonshiner, a man convicted of stealing government property and another sentenced for receiving kickbacks in military procurement contracts.

"By refusing to pardon agents Ramos and Compean, the president has missed yet another opportunity to correct this miscarriage of justice," he said. "The fact that the drug dealer, whose testimony sent the agents to jail has been indicted for running drugs across the border while serving as a federal witness necessitates a presidential pardon.

"Agents Ramos and Compean deserve to be pardoned and returned to their families for Christmas," he said.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, California Republican, said the pardon list includes eight drug dealers, saying Mr. Bush's "heartless ignoring of the fundamental miscarriage of justice in the case of agents Ramos and Compean ... is a snub to the families and a slap in the face to millions of Americans who have pleaded with the president to show some mercy."

"Instead, he turns around and shows mercy to drug dealers and other criminals and leaves Ramos and Compean to suffer in solitary confinement," he said.

Ramos, 37, and Compean, 28, were sentenced in October 2006 to 11- and 12-year prison terms, respectively, for shooting a Mexican drug-smuggling suspect in the buttocks as he fled to Mexico after refusing their orders to stop and abandoning his van with 743 pounds of marijuana. The case is being appealed.

A federal appeals court judge, during a Dec. 3 hearing, said the government "overreacted" in the agents' prosecution. A decision could take several weeks... more