Free Compean And Ramos!

From one of many blast messages I've received this week:

Apparently some in the Bush Administration believe drug dealers, tax evaders and bank embezzlers are deserving of pardons...

.. but former Border Patrol Agents Jose Compean and Ignacio Ramos - serving a combined 23 years for what Congressman Tom Tancredo described as "doing their jobs" - don't even deserve the time of day!

President Bush recently issued 14 pardons and two sentence commutations.

Among those issued pardons and commutations were bank embezzlers, tax evaders and a rapper, John E. Forte, who was convicted of aiding and abetting possession with intent to distribute cocaine.

Agents Compean and Ramos were NOT on the list.

Such egregious neglect prompted Congressman Dana Rohrabacher to say:

"The fact that the president has neglected to free these men from their imprisonment while freeing drug dealers, embezzlers and other criminals is insulting to the American people. For the sake of justice, let's hope this is not the last round of pardons and commutations."

According to Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum:

"The end of President Bush's final term is quickly approaching. Less than two months remain until he will hand over his White House keys to Barack Obama, but we cannot let him leave office without resolving one very important issue: he must commute the prison sentences of convicted U.S. Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean!"

We could not agree more.

President Bush still has time to make things right and it's up to folks like us to make sure he does the right thing!

Time is running out for Compean and Ramos!

That's why now is NOT the time to stop pressuring President Bush and our elected officials to do the right thing and release these American heroes from prison!

This may be a new issue to some of you, and that is my fault.  This whole thing blew up around the time I started this blog, I never really covered it back then (my newbie mistake), and it never became really high profile after that.  Here's the short version, if memory serves correctly.

A couple years ago, two Border Patrol agents, Jose Compean and Ignacio Ramos were making a stop of a drug dealer at the U.S.-Mexico border.  The drug dealer tried to run back over to the Mexico side, and in the process of escaping pulled a gun (or what looked like a gun) on the agents.  They fired, hitting the drug dealer in the butt.  In a turn of events only achievable by the bass-ackwards liberal-wacko ACLU, the drug dealer actually got released -- never mind the fact that he was a repeat border crosser, was carrying drugs and a weapon, and guilty of numbers legal violations -- and the two Border Patrol agents were sent to prison.  This is one of the most unjust things I've ever seen, and there has rightfully been a movement on their behalf to get them released ever since they went to jail.  Both men have families with young children, and were simply doing their duty in upholding the laws of this country.  Why they were sent to prison when the real criminal was released is beyond comprehension.

Anyway, the only realistic hope they have of being released before the end of their sentences (11 and 12 years, respectively) is for President Bush to pardon them.  Obviously, Bush's time in office is growing short, so the pressure is now being ratcheted up.  Contact the White House and urge them to pardon or commute the two agents' sentences, and let them go home to be with their families for the holidays and restore some slight semblance of justice to people who most certainly need it.

Just do it.  In fact, do it more than once.

There's my two cents.