Securing a pardon for secure borders.(Inside Track)(Jose Compean and Ignacio Ramos)

"Everybody realizes that President Bush has some kind of commitment to an open-border policy with Mexico," exclaimed Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) at a press conference held at the steps of the Old Orange County Courthouse in Santa Aria, California, on December 21, 2006.

Congressman Rohrabacher was joined by Border Patrol agent Jose Compean and his family to call upon the president to grant a presidential pardon to two U.S. Border Patrol agents who are being treated as criminals by the U.S. Justice Department for simply performing their duties to secure our country.

Border Patrol agents Jose Compean and Ignacio Ramos were sentenced in October 2006 to 12 and 11 years respectively for an incident that occurred along the El Paso, Texas, border in February 2005. That incident involved both agents in a non-fatal shooting of an admitted drug smuggler, Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila, as he tried to smuggle 743 pounds of marijuana in his van into the United States.

Aldrete-Davila eventually escaped back into Mexico, but that was only the beginning of an ordeal that would continue to haunt agents Compean and Ramos. To the shock of many, the drug smuggler was given free medical treatment for his ...