Border Patrol Agent Ignacio Ramos (an eight-year veteran of the Naval Reserve and a former nominee for Border Patrol Agent of the Year) and Jose Alonso Compean were on patrol Feb. 17, 2005, in the small Texas town of Fabens, about 40 miles south of El Paso.
Compean was monitoring the south side of a levee road near the Rio Grande on the U.S.-Mexico border in Fabens when he spotted a suspicious van driving down the north end of the road. The van was being driven by Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila, a Mexican national. Compean called for backup.
Ramos headed to Fabens, where he thought he could intercept the van at one of only two roads leading in and out of the small town.
Another agent was already following the van when Ramos arrived. Ramos and the other agent followed the van through the center of town until it turned back toward the Rio Grande, which marks the border between Mexico and the United States. Aldrete-Davila, unable to outrun the agents, stopped his van on a levee, got out and started running. Compean was waiting for him on the other side of the levee.
Aldrete-Davila made his way through a canal, and Ramos could hear Compean yelling for Aldrete-Davila to stop, he said.
When Mr. Aldrete-Davila jumped out of the van and ran south to the river, he was confronted by Compean, who was thrown to the ground as the two men fought. Ramos said that when he arrived, he saw Compean on the ground and chased Aldrete-Davila to the river. “At some point during the time where I’m crossing the canal, I hear shots being fired,” Ramos said. “Later, I see Compean on the ground, but I keep running after the smuggler.”
“We both yelled out for him to stop, but he wouldn’t stop, and he just kept running,” Ramos said. Ramos said his pursuit of Aldrete-Davila was nothing different from what he’s done the past 10 years as a Border Patrol agent.
Through the thick dust, Ramos watched as Aldrete-Davila turned toward him, pointing what appeared to be a gun.
“I shot,” he said. “But I didn’t think he was hit because he kept running into the brush and then disappeared into it. Later, we all watched as he jumped into a van waiting for him. He seemed fine. It didn’t look like he had been hit at all.” Aldrete-Davila was, in fact, shot in the buttocks.
Seven other agents were on the scene by that time. The van later was found to have about 800 pounds of marijuana, worth $1 million, inside.
An investigator from the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General, acting on a tip from a Border Patrol agent in Arizona, tracked down Aldrete-Davila in Mexico. The department oversees the Border Patrol.
So far nothing seems unusual for events at the US-Mexico border. But this is where the story becomes a surreal abomination of national security.
Remember those people from the Department of Homeland Security that tracked down Aldrete-Davila in Mexico? Once they found him they offered him full immunity in exchange for testimony against the Border Patrol officers and complete taxpayer-funded medical care at William Beaumont Army Medical Center in El Paso. According to the DHS Aldrete-Davila was deprived of his civil rights.
No, I’m not kidding.
Even more broadly, Assistant U.S. Attorney Debra Kanof said, Ramos and Compean had no business chasing someone in the first place. That’s right, our Border Patrol cannot chase someone illegally breaking into this country with their Supervisor’s permission beforehand.
A federal jury convicted agents Ignacio Ramos, 37, and Jose Alonso Compean, 28, in March of causing serious bodily injury, assault with a deadly weapon, discharge of a firearm in relation to a crime of violence, and a civil rights violation.
On July 25, the U.S. Probation Office in El Paso recommended to Judge Kathleen Cardone that each man get 20 years. Aldrete-Davila is also suing the Border Patrol for $5 million for violating his civil rights.
“It appears the facts do not add up or justify the length of the sentences for these agents, let alone their conviction on multiple counts,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, California Democrat. “Border Patrol agents have a difficult and often dangerous job in guarding our nation’s borders. Undue prosecution of Border Patrol agents could have a chilling effect on their ability to carry out their duties,” Mrs. Feinstein said in a letter Monday to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania Republican, requesting a full hearing into the matter.
In a letter to President Bush, Rep. Walter B. Jones, North Carolina Republican, asked the White House to review the case, saying the prosecution was “outrageous.” He said it did nothing but “tie the hands of the Border Patrol and prevent the agency from securing America against a flood of illegal immigrants, drugs, counterfeit goods and, quite possibly, terrorists. This demoralizing prosecution puts the rights of illegal smugglers ahead of our homeland security and undermines the critical mission of better enforcing immigration laws,” Mr. Jones said. “These two agents should not be made scapegoats for our government’s enforcement failures.”
If you agree with me that this is a gross miscarriage of justice visit GrassFire.org and sign their petition to President Bush:
To: President George W. Bush,
As a citizen of the United States I am outraged to learn that two U.S. Border Agents are facing twenty-year prison terms for doing their jobs– pursuing illegal aliens who cross our border, and I’m calling on you to officially pardon them for their actions..
I am even more outraged to learn that this illegal alien (who was attempting to smuggle about 800 pounds of marijuana into our country), was tracked down by a Department of Homeland Security Investigator and granted immunity for his testimony against these two agents!
This is a terrible injustice, and I urge you to use your considerable authority and power to pardon these two agents and right this obvious wrong!
Border Patrol, Ignacio Ramos, Compean, Fabens, Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila, Department of Homeland Security
