Pubdate: Fri, 26 Jan 2007 Source: Wall Street Journal (US) Page A10 Copyright: 2007 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. Contact: http://www.wsj.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/487 BONKERS AT THE BORDER Most people would consider corrupt border patrol agents to be part of the illegal immigration problem, not the solution. So it's passing strange that anti-immigration Republicans in Congress are calling for the federal government to release Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean, two former border guards from Texas who were sent to prison last week for shooting an unarmed man in the back and then trying to cover up their crime. Several GOP lawmakers, including outspoken restrictionists like Congressmen Tom Tancredo and Duncan Hunter, have hailed the ex-agents as American heroes. President Bush is even being urged to pardon Ramos and Compean, who received sentences of 11 years and 12 years, respectively. GOP Representative Dana Rohrabacher has gone so far as to accuse Mr. Bush of being "on the side of [America's] enemies" for allowing the men to go to jail. CNN's Lou Dobbs has also weighed in repeatedly with pseudo-reporting designed to rile up his viewers rather than inform them of the facts. Speaking of facts, they are as follows, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Texas and evidence presented at the ex-agents' jury trial: Agents Ramos and Compean were guarding the Mexican border near El Paso, Texas, on Feb. 17, 2005, when they encountered a van driven by Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila. When the driver saw the agents he sped off, eventually abandoning the vehicle and fleeing toward the border on foot. At one point, Aldrete-Davila stopped running and raised his empty hands to surrender. But when the first border agent to approach him stumbled, Aldrete-Davila took off again toward the Rio Grande. At this point, Agents Ramos and Compean opened fire, shooting at the back of a suspect who they knew was unarmed. They fired 14 rounds in all -- Agent Compean even paused to reload -- finally hitting Aldrete-Davila in the buttocks. The suspect was wounded but still managed to make it across the border and escape. It later was determined that Aldrete-Davila was in the country illegally and smuggling drugs. Nearly 750 pounds of marijuana were found in the van. But Ramos and Compean didn't know the suspect's immigration status when they shot him. Nor did they know the contents of the vehicle he was driving. What the agents did know is that they had broken any number of border patrol policies. So Compean and another agent returned to the scene to gather shell casings and discard them in a drainage ditch. Compean and Ramos, who'd been disciplined for past conduct unbecoming a federal officer, then filed a false report. The only reason their cover-up didn't succeed is because an honest border agent who learned of the shooting eventually reported it. After a trial lasting nearly three weeks, a federal jury in El Paso convicted both agents on charges including assault with a deadly weapon and obstruction of justice. As Johnny Sutton, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Texas, put it: "The simple truth of this case is that former Agents Compean and Ramos shot 15 times at an unarmed man who was running away from them and posed no threat. They lied about what happened, covered up the shooting, conspired to destroy the evidence and then proceeded to write up and file a false report." The Congressmen who are exploiting the episode haven't made an issue of the agents' guilt, which is by and large conceded. Rather, the restrictionists argue that Compean and Ramos should be given a pass because the victim of their crime was a drug-smuggling illegal alien. This is an odd argument coming from immigration hard-liners, who typically say that while they love legal immigrants the U.S. must "enforce the law" on the border. That the agents have been held accountable for misconduct shows that no one is above the law. Letting the agents off the hook would also send a terrible message to honest border agents who perform a difficult and dangerous job. Turning felons into political causes is the kind of stunt usually pulled by the likes of Al Sharpton. That Republicans would now stoop to it shows how immigration has caused some on the right to lose their political bearings. First they gave up their belief in free labor markets, and now they're discarding their law enforcement credentials. And these are the same folks who assail Mr. Bush's guest-worker proposal as "amnesty." The irony is that if Mr. Bush's plan were in place and there were more legal ways to enter the U.S., border agents would have more time and resources to chase down people like Aldrete-Davila and apprehend them properly.