[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 1]
[House]
[Pages 1509-1510]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




       AMNESTY NEEDED FOR BORDER PATROL AGENTS RAMOS AND COMPEAN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. POE. Mr. Speaker, the Federal Government, this body, the body 
down the hallway, for some time has been talking about amnesty, amnesty 
for anywhere between 12 million and almost 20 million illegal people in 
the United States.
  Well, I would like to talk about amnesty, but not for people who are 
illegally in the country, because I am opposed to that. But I would 
like to talk about amnesty for Americans, citizens,

[[Page 1510]]

and I only want to talk about amnesty for two of those citizens. They 
are border agents who have been convicted of so-called civil rights 
violations of an illegal drug smuggler bringing drugs to the United 
States.

                              {time}  1800

  Two border agents, Compean and Ramos, today went to the penitentiary 
for 11 and 12 years for doing this. They work on the Texas-Mexico 
border, a volatile war zone. The border is the second front, and while 
on duty patrolling the sovereignty of our country, they come across a 
drug dealer driving a van full of about 780 pounds of marijuana. That 
does not mean anything, but it is worth a million dollars. That does 
mean something, something we can relate to.
  A confrontation occurs, drug dealer abandons the van, tries to flee 
back to Mexico, has an altercation with the border agents, shots are 
fired, he runs to Mexico.
  The next thing we find out, our Federal Government chooses to go to 
Mexico, find this drug dealer, learns that he has been shot, bring him 
back to America, treat his wounds at American expense, give him a deal, 
a backroom deal, to testify against the border agents because they did 
not follow some policy of reporting shots being fired. So they go to 
court, give the drug dealer amnesty, give the drug dealer immunity.
  While waiting to testify, the old drug dealer goes back to Mexico and 
picks up another load of dope, almost 1,000 pounds of drugs, gets 
caught by different border agents. Once again, not prosecuted by the 
Federal Government because the Federal Government is so determined to 
prosecute border agents, not drug dealers; and after the trial, the 
border agents were convicted, and now they went to the penitentiary.
  Our Federal Government had a choice to make in this case, whether or 
not to stand on the side of the lawless drug dealer or stand with our 
border agents who try to enforce the rule of law. Our government chose 
poorly. They sided with the enemy. They sided with the outlaws. They 
sided with illegal drug dealers and prosecuted our border agents. I ask 
the question, why?
  If the border agents violated some policy or rule, suspend them, give 
them days off, demote them, but send them to the penitentiary for 12 
years when the drug dealer goes free? This does not pass the smell test 
or, as we say in Texas, that dog just don't hunt, Mr. Speaker.
  So we are asking a very simple thing, some of us from Congress, about 
55. We are asking the President to grant amnesty to these two border 
agents. The administration, Federal Government, talks about amnesty. We 
just want it for two folks, and the President has the constitutional 
power to pardon and parole. The President exercised that power, that is 
his right under the Constitution, almost 100 times in the last 6 years. 
We are simply asking that the administration exercise the pardon power 
and pardon these two border agents and send the message to the Border 
Patrol and all these sheriffs who work on the border, trying to enforce 
the law, that we will stand beside you when you try and enforce the 
law; and also send the message to drug dealers that we are not going to 
work with you, we are not giving you a deal, we do not work backroom 
deals with drug dealers; we support our Border Patrol on the Texas-
Mexico border.
  So, Mr. Speaker, we hope that we get a response from the Federal 
Government on this pardon. So far, we have not received anything. I 
think the Federal Government is blissfully indifferent to the plight of 
these two border agents, and so we would hope that this gets some 
attention from folks across the country. Over 200,000 people have 
signed petitions asking that the President pardon both of these border 
agents; and we hope that that does occur because justice in this case 
did not occur, because our government chose to be on the wrong side of 
the border.
  And that's just the way it is, Mr. Speaker.

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