The Border Patrol Fiasco

First, here's President Bush with Neil Cavuto yesterday on the Border Patrol Fiasco:

CAVUTO: Let me ask you, sir, about the ex-Border Patrol agents, Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, both serving time in jail for shooting a runaway Mexican drug dealer.
Would you pardon them?
BUSH: You know, I get asked about pardons on a lot of different cases. And there's a procedure in place. And what I told members of Congress who have written me or called was to just look at the case, look at the facts in the case.
And people need to understand why these folks were sent to trial and why a jury of their peers convicted them. And that's, of course, what a president does on any pardon request.
CAVUTO: So, what are you saying?
BUSH: I'm saying, I would look at all the facts. And — but there is a process in any case for a president to make a pardon decision. In other words, there is a series of steps that are followed, so that the pardon process is, you know, a rational process.
CAVUTO: Well, they're in jail now. They're not going anywhere.
BUSH: Right. That's right.
CAVUTO: So...
BUSH: So...
(CROSSTALK)
CAVUTO: ... as things stand now, they will stay in jail.
BUSH: As things stand now, they will serve their sentence, right.
CAVUTO: Unless you interfere.
BUSH: Right. But what I'm trying to tell you is, is that it is — there is a series of steps that are analyzed in order for the Justice Department to make a recommendation as to whether or not a president grants a pardon.
CAVUTO: And we're not at that yet?
BUSH: No, we're not at that stage yet.

Background on the story from World Net Daily here and here (much of the two pieces are the same). The ultimate miscarriage of justice:

"U.S. District Court Judge Kathleen Cardone in El Paso, Texas, sentenced Jose Alonso Compean to 12 years in prison and Ignacio Ramos to 11 years and one day despite a plea by their attorney for a new trial after three jurors said they were coerced into voting guilty in the case, the Washington Times reported."

Maybe the President isn't pardoning the two agents because he nominated the judge to the U.S. District Court? Let's hope not...

Deb Saunders has been all over this case: here is her most recent piece, along with past columns here and here.

What kind of message does this sentencing and subsequent inaction by President Bush send to current and would-be border patrol agents? "You better not make a mistake"?

The victim's civil rights were violated - keep in mind, the victim purportedly sold drugs since the age of 14, never sold unless he was packing heat, carted over 700 pounds of marijuana illegally over the U.S. - Mexican border, and is now suing for $5 million dollars.

Isn't this just a little bit backwards?

With our borders more porous than we even knew, immigrants sending money to their homelands in record numbers due in large part to deportation fears, and the opportunities for work extending beyond agriculture, illegal immigrants are pouring into the country in record numbers (according to the Washington Times, 300,000 illegal aliens live in the Washington, D.C. metro area ALONE)...

...shouldn't border enforcement be something we REWARD, rather than PUNISH?

These agents have suffered enough. A presidential pardon is necessary.

Congressman Duncan Hunter has the right idea. Hopefully the President does, too.

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