Posted on 08/17/2006 5:46:50 PM PDT by calcowgirl
EL PASO — Republican congressmen said today they would call for an investigation into why two U.S. Border Patrol agents were prosecuted then convicted this year of shooting a drug-smuggling suspect and trying to cover it up.
They were in El Paso for a House Judiciary Committee field hearing on immigration, one of about a dozen such hearings around the country this month.
Indiana U.S. Rep. John Hostettler, a member of the House Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims, pledged to take up the case of Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean. They were convicted in March on several felonies and a civil rights violation.
Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, the Wisconsin Republican whose House bill calls for the criminalization of illegal immigrants and other immigration enforcement reforms, called for an investigation into the case.
Several other House members, including Democrat Silvestre Reyes, who led the El Paso Sector of the U.S. Border Patrol before being elected to Congress, also agreed to support a probe.
Andy Ramirez, chairman of the nonprofit Friends of the Border Patrol, asked the committee to launch the investigation, saying the men were wrongly prosecuted and convicted "for simply doing their job."
None of the representatives said whether they would look to overturn the men's convictions.
Amid a strong showing of security around the Chamizal National Monument along the border in El Paso, the committee also heard divergent testimony from law enforcement officials on whether local officers should enforce immigration laws.
El Paso Police Chief Richard Wiles, whose department polices the largest American city on the southern border, called the proposal a mistake.
"We don't have the time, we don't have the resources," Chief Richard Wiles told the committee. "It's not even proper to ask. It causes dissension."
Sensenbrenner, who has become a polarizing figure in the national immigration debate, asked Wiles if he would support a law allowing officers to enforce immigration laws while enforcing state criminal statutes.
"We do not want to become agents of immigration," Wiles answered.
El Paso County Sheriff Leo Samaniego took the opposite stance.
"One step away from the federal line is our jurisdiction," he said. "We, the sheriffs, have to deal with the consequences" of a porous border.
Kathleen Campbell Walker, of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, told the committee that immigration law is simply too complex to be left to local law enforcement.
The Republican committee members, who sat in the majority Thursday, were greeted by a vocally hostile audience of about 200 onlookers. Sensenbrenner warned the audience several times that they were not to audibly respond to any comments or testimony.
Outside the hearing, which was not open for public comment, about 100 protesters chanted and waived signs telling Sensenbrenner he was not welcome. Some protesters, carrying caricatures of Sensenbrenner as a member of the Ku Klux Klan, decried him as a racist.
After the hearing, Sensenbrenner defended H.R. 4437, his controversial House immigration bill passed last year, and countered accusations he was being racist.
"When you can't argue the merits, you call names," he said. "I authored the voting rights extension bill ... signed by President Bush. Racists don't do that."
Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee, a Houston Democrat and the ranking minority member on the Subcommittee on Immigration, called the series of Republican-led hearings a "traveling road show."
Throughout the morning hearing and in a brief press conference afterward, Jackson-Lee urged her Republican counterparts to meet with the Senate to create a unified bill. The Senate passed an immigration reform bill this year that included a path to legalization.
Convicted border agent tells his story
Daily Bulletin ^ | 8/6/06 | Sara A. Carter
Posted on 08/06/2006 10:57:27 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
PING!
These two agents were doing their jobs and should be commended for their bravery.
This cannot be allowed to stand.
This is great news. These guys deserve a Presidential pardon IMO.
God, could we possibly have a federal government any more dumb-assed than the one we've got?
There's always France.
That's a rhetorical question, right?
Sign the Petition for a Presidential Pardon:
http://www.grassfire.org/142/petition.asp
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