Posted on 01/24/2007 5:51:23 AM PST by NapkinUser
Calls State of the Union speech 'total sellout of the United States of America to Mexico'
Monica Ramos, the wife of one of two U.S. Border Patrol agents imprisoned last week for wounding an escaping drug smuggler, attended the State of the Union speech in person last night – and was sharply critical of President Bush, calling him a hypocrite and worse.
Ramos, wife of Border Patrol agent Ignacio Ramos, attended the event as a guest of Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif.
Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean began prison sentences last week, of 11 and 12 years respectively, for their actions in the shooting and wounding of a Mexican drug smuggler who was granted full immunity to testify against them.
At the conclusion of the speech, Ramos, emotional and in tears, told WND in an exclusive interview, that she considered President Bush's speech compete hypocrisy.
"How could President Bush say that he wanted to secure our borders and that he would double the size of the Border Patrol when my husband is in prison," she asked WND. "Ignacio was trying to secure our border from drug smugglers. And what do we get? I have to show my children their father in prison in chains and I have to explain to them that the president of the United States is a liar."
WND waited nearly an hour after the speech was concluded to be able to speak with a clearly emotionally upset Monica Ramos.
"President Bush can say all he wants that the solution to border security is new infrastructure and technology," Ramos told WND, "but as long as my husband is in jail the American people should know that President Bush doesn't mean a word he says."
"What I sat in the gallery and heard tonight," she said, "was a total sell-out of the United States of America to Mexico. I heard President Bush's message loud and clear. All the president has to offer is electronic gadgets. Meanwhile, our borders are wide open to illegal immigrants, criminals and drug smugglers. God help the honest men and women of the Border Patrol who want to do their duty. It's a losing battle – just ask my husband, he'll tell you the truth."
"The American people only need to ask me," Ramos pleaded to WND. "Tell America that President Bush doesn't mean a word of what he says about border security. My husband is in jail for trying to capture a drug smuggler and President Bush wants electronics? My husband is a hero and President Bush is a traitor as far as I'm concerned. Let him tell my children that he wants new 'infrastructure' or 'comprehensive immigration reform' when their dad who wore the Border Patrol badge for years is shackled and in chains for doing his job."
Rohrabacher agreed with Ramos, emphasizing to WND that "the Bush administration has a hidden agenda with Mexico and that agenda is to keep our border with Mexico wide open, even to drug smugglers."
Asked what message he wanted to send by inviting Ramos' wife to attend the speech in person, Rohrabacher explained: "I wanted to give Mrs. Ramos the opportunity to be in the room and look President Bush right in the face, knowing that this was the man who was destroying her life by his decision to prosecute her husband to the hilt."
Rohrabacher described the injustice he perceived in emotional terms: "By prosecuting these two Border Patrol agents while the drug smuggler is given immunity, President Bush has brutalized the lives of agents Ramos and Compean with a decision that threatens to destroy their families. The wives and the young children of these two Border Patrol agents are now being driven into poverty. The families have no health insurance, they are now losing their homes, and they face a mountain of debt to lawyers. This is a travesty of justice and a personal tragedy that should make President Bush ashamed.
Asked if he had achieved his purpose in inviting Monica Ramos to attend the speech, Rohrabacher told WND:
My purpose after hearing the State of the Union tonight is doubly resolved. President Bush needs to know that we will not rest until Border Patrol [officers] Ramos and Compean are set free.
In history there are cases where heroic people were brutalized and sacrificed by political powers in order to achieve a certain agenda. In this case, I think that's what's happening.
We have an administration that has a hidden agenda with Mexico such that George Bush wants an open border, even though an open border is not in the interests of the American people.
These Border Patrol agents are caught in the middle. They're Americans and they know what their job is supposed to be. They are being persecuted and prosecuted for our sake because they are getting in the way of a power play that has yet been disclosed to the public.
It brutalizes the lives and destroys the families of men who have been willing to sacrifice their lives for us for the last five and 10 years. This is both a tragedy and a travesty.
The continued insistence of the administration to prosecute these Border Patrol agents and to put them in jail and to shackle them and see the families of these men being driven into destitution – this indicates that there has been a decision right at the top that's based on arrogance and cruelty that I think unfortunately reflects our president. It's a side of the president that is now coming out.
We get calls back from the underlings, the assistant congressional liaison officers. This president doesn't return phone calls and he is arrogant and nasty and doesn't treat people very well, not even members of Congress.
The statement we're trying to make is that the president's policy along the border is responsible for murders, drug dealers and terrorists entering the country, millions of illegals. His policy has resulted in the undermining of those law enforcement officers guarding the border, he has totally demoralized the Border Patrol, and in the process of him trying to send a message to the Border Patrol he's destroying the lives of two families. … This person looking right into the face of the president in the same room, this mother of three, her life is being destroyed by President Bush's decision to fully prosecute to the hilt her husband.
American citizens need to rally around these two Border Patrol agents and should call the White House directly to register their protest to this travesty of justice.
President Bush made no reference to the Border Patrol case in a 50-minute speech that focused on domestic issues in the first half and international issues in the second half.
Monica Ramos told WND she was in Washington, D.C., to attend a meeting yesterday afternoon with concerned congressmen.
At least 70 members of the House have signed on to a resolution ordering a congressional pardon that would toss out the convictions and immediately free the former agents.
Monica Ramos described her first meeting with her husband in prison as "heart breaking."
Ramos confirmed the account provided WND by her father, Joe Loya. She acknowledged her husband is being held in solitary confinement in a 6-by-12 foot cell, without windows. Ignacio Ramos is not being allowed any exercise time, and he is shackled every time he leaves his cell.
"This may be for his protection from other inmates," Monica Ramos acknowledged to WND, "but this is abusive. They are treating my husband like the worst hardened criminal imaginable."
She said one of her three young children is so disturbed by the imprisonment that the family has decided to seek counseling for the child.
"My children are planning to visit their father for the first time this Friday," she said, expressing concern. "This will be the first time they see their dad shackled in chains, when they are used to seeing me send him off in his badge and uniform."
The couple's youngest child is 7 years old, the others are aged 9 and 13.
"My youngest child wanted to know if we could order pizza for dad in prison," Monic Ramos said. "No, I told him. Let's wait and have pizza night when daddy gets home."
you clearly do not have the facts of the case
The President didn't force her husband to shoot anyone, and if a jury convicted him, it possibly was on the strength of the EVIDENCE, again, nothing to do with the President.
what is your source for the 'facts'?
Thanks for looking that up. I went to the link you provided, and I'm assuming you got that from one of the .pdf's linked off the home page. Which one was it? I'd like to take a look at that in context.
If they have time to post five press releases on a website in PDF format justifying their position, they should have no trouble with taking the time to release the relevant excerpts from the actual testimony as well. But you're right; if the defense attorneys actually had a legal ground to stand on, I suspect relevant transcript portions would be all over the news.
That is always a possibility. You have what I have learned in my posts. Correct me if I am wrong, but don't bother going into some tirade about how we are being "invaded" or other such bleatings. Right now is NOT the time to drag out a fixation on the border, as there are a variety of ways to address the mess there. Like you said, lets stick with the "facts of the case." Please show me the error of my ways.
thanks for responding and admitting we all need the facts!! I would suggest you restrain your tone however as I do not 'bleat' as you term it but am seriously concerned about the open border issue.
The press release dated September 8th.
Go here: http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53873 to learn the facts in this case.
Quote from article:
"The U.S. Army doctor who removed the bullet testified at the trial that the drug smuggler was not shot from behind, but that he removed the bullet from the side, with the bullet piercing the left side of his left buttock and traveled to his right groin."
The more I read about this case, the worse it stinks.
I'd rather that my taxpayer money be spent prosecuting cases on the docket, instead of cases that are concluded.
Best analysis I have seen. These guys are overworked, underrespected, and constantly wondering whether they have Carlos, a poor peasant who thinks $6.00/hour is a dream job, or some MS13 punk who deserves to be shot, no matter which side of the border he is on. I can COMPLETELY understand shooting the guy.
However, investigative procedures for law enforcement are there for a reason. Otherwise, you have cops charging into the home of a 90 year old Atlanta woman and killing her..., no, wait, we already HAVE that.
It is precisely because cops DO have this kind of power that we must have ways of making the power accountable.
Maybe they flipped out, and were just trying to protect each other's jobs. That is my guess. I would have been very lenient on them, as no one was killed and the guy who was shot was a dirtbag. However, losing a job trumps prison every single time. Bad choices. I wish Bush would commute their sentences, but he now faces a "no win" situation due to the normal hysteria that surrounds anything that has the word "border" in it.
The above statement troubles me. We have the U.S. Attorney's Office stating to what Compean and Ramos tesitified. Are you suggesting that it's a lie? If so, their defense attorneys are clearly incompetent, and the U.S. Attorney committed a felony.
If we had conducted WWI and WWII in the same manner that we are conducting this war we would all be speaking German or Japanese.
Bush has been walking around with a deer in the headlights look for the last two years, and when you have a deer in the headlights look, that means that someone is about to run you over.
At this point I do not have confidence that he will do what it takes to win this war or to prosecute the war on terrorism or to stop the invasion of illegal immigrants who are destined to change America into a Latin American banana republic.
I do take comfort in the knowledge that whatever Bush does is essentially part of God's overall plan. I do fear, however, that what is happening now is the dawn of judgment rather than the dawn of mercy.
We live in interesting times.
I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest to read a statement from a prosecutor or a defense attorney in which they've slanted words in their favor, so I wouldn't be surprised if the testimony that press release refers to doesn't actually say what the U.S. Attorney says it does. The fact that the defense attorneys haven't released relevant portions of the trial transcript to counter that statement would lead me to believe the U.S. Attorney is telling the truth, though.
Stop it. Now. Either Compean or Ramos testified to that fact, or they did not. Listen to yourself.
So am I, but this is not the place to bring that issue in. I might subsitute the words "bray" "bellow" "howl" "screech" "rave" "splutter" or "rant" if you wish, as they sum up my analysis of the input of many Freepers on the border issue. Let's keep my analysis in the abstract, rather than personal, as I don't know about you. We have never had the pleasure of discussing it, to my knowledge.
My original challenge stands, though. You say that I am not acquainted with the facts of the case. I am waiting for you to tell me what they are.
I profoundly disagree, one becomes a felon at precisely the moment that one commits a felony. Conviction or acquittal is a discovery or "finding" of guilt or innocence not an imposition. I do not think that LEO's and citizens should carry out the punishment of felons sans due process but I easily make a distinction between apprehension and punishment. "Innocent until proven guilty" is a matter of regard not a matter of treatment (suspects are arrested) nor a matter of fact (the guilty are guilty from the moment of offense).
BTW: You should not steal your bicycle back from the thief because you have deprived him of his due process. What if you made a mistake? You would then be a criminal! You should have reported him to proper authorities who would have recovered your property and hopefully apprehended, tried and convicted the criminal, resulting in justice for all. Have you never heard: "don't take the law into your own hands"?
Without the actual transcripts, I don't know if they did or not. I suspect they did.
For one important thing, the agents DID report to their supervisors and were given the option to go home as it was the end of the shift, or wait a few hours. There was no 'cover-up'!! The truth will come out when the transcript is read.
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