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."
"If you were (maybe you are) a BP agent, that chases drug smugglers, wouldn't it be reasonable to believe they might be armed?"
Possibly but that was not the scenario here nor is it what the law allows. My assumption that someone may be armed simply is not enough to begin legally firing on them. Where live, there is no telling who is packing. That would give the cops carte blanche to drop whoever they wanted. No thanks.
I also disagree with the PC nuttiness and how many times the law is hamstrung by loony rules. I tend to think, with you, that they just panicked. That is why 10 years is such a crazy sentence.
My point is that the way things have degenerated re: immigration/border control, the crazies have turned this (or attempted to turn it) into some witch hunt of our noble law enforcement guys by a hispanic pandering group determined to "sell us out" or some other such idiotic nonsense. It is not, and it just shows them to be the fixated drooling haters they insist on being.
I am not sure the guy had no gun. He CLAIMED he had no gun and the agents had forfeited their credibility by obstruction and lying. However, I certainly would not try to haul 750 pounds of dope somewhere without a gun. Would you?
"and that felons are protected from such by the 4th amendment."
One is not a felon until he has been convicted in a court of law.
I stole my own bicycle back from from some kid who parked it in front of a store. Everybody who saw it thought I stole HIS bike and were chasing me down the highway. Glad you weren't there, I'd likely be dead. ;-)
According to the testimony, the driver of the van, Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila, failed to yield to Agent Ramos’ attempt to stop him, jumped out of his vehicle and attempted to run back to Mexico. After Ramos told Aldrete-Davila to stop, Ramos drew his service revolver and pointed it at Aldrete-Davila. Aldrete-Davila jumped into a steep ditch filled with dirty water and when he tried to climb the steep incline out of the ditch, he was confronted by defendant Compean, waiting for him with a shotgun pointed directly at him. During his testimony, Compean acknowledged that at that time Aldrete-Davila held his hands up, as if to surrender, with his palms open, and no weapon was in either hand, or evident on his person. [] Agent Ramos also testified that when he saw Aldrete-Davila in the ditch, he had an opportunity to look at Aldrete-Davila’s hands, which he is trained to do for self defense and defense of another, and did not see any weapons in either of Aldrete-Davila’s hands. [emphasis added]
Source: U.S. Attorney’s Office, Western District of Texas, press release, Sept. 8, 2006.
That wasn't what I posted. I wasn't justifying a shooting. I said that if your job was to arrest drug smugglers....people who will do whatever they can to keep from getting caught, including firing at officers in the past, would it be reasonable to believe they might be armed and that you could be killed if you let your guard down? Or would you go into a situation like that believing a drug smuggler was unarmed and harmless?
"I would be inclined to believe the agents and support them were it not for their despicable behavior in attempting to cover up the incident and lying about until they were caught."
I was 100% behind them until I started getting actual facts, which incriminate the agents.
Re your post #20: well said.
agree completely!! and what has Monica Ramos to lose by telling the truth? Too many posters here do not know the facts of the case and are misrepresenting what happened. Not to mention they take the word of a drug smuggler against those of the Border Patrol agents.
agree completely!! and what has Monica Ramos to lose by telling the truth? Too many posters here do not know the facts of the case and are misrepresenting what happened. Not to mention they take the word of a drug smuggler against those of the Border Patrol agents.
It would be a lot more convincing if the actual testimony was available, rather than the word of someone who has a vested interest in the case (the prosecutor). Still, I suppose this is as good we have at this point.
Do y'all seriously not know the difference between the back and the butt?
'Cause the drug dealer got shot in the latter, not the former.
That this dirtbag got capped in the ass is excellent, and we should trumpet the fact.
many thanks and keep spreading the word!!
If the howlers would SHUT UP long enough to learn about the facts of the case, Bush might consider commuting the sentences to a more reasonable punishment. However, with the immigraphobes all glassy eyed and screeching at full tilt, it is hard to get a sane thought in this thing, much less a sane word.
If I were in any kind of law enforcement, as a matter of personal safety, I would assume every perp was armed until I saw different or heard "clean" from another officer. I believe that is SOP. It's not a ticket to pull the trigger, though.
I could understand these guys getting wound up in the heat of things and pulling the trigger on this guy. That doesn't make it right, but I can get my mind around it. What I can't understand is the cover-up and refusal to report the incident.
My point is that we do not know for sure wither way if the smuggler was armed, though common sense would lead one to suspect that a major drug runner crossing an international border would most likely be packing. Anyhow, there have been more than one freeper who have posted "the smuggler was unarmed" as a fact, when it is not.
I think Compean freaked (for whatever reason), and Ramos took a fall because (in the heat of the moment) he tried to cover-up in order to protect his partner.
Read my #85 and weep.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.