 |
|
|
 Editorials | Issues | August 2007 
Panel Probes Mexico's Role in Ex-Border Agents Case
 Michelle Mittelstadt - Houston Chronicle
go to original
| | The US Senate last week approved a domestic security spending bill that provides for more border patrol agents and other border security measures that backers said could help lay the groundwork for broad immigration reforms. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters) |
Homeland Security, Justice officials refuse to give testimony
Washington — Bipartisan congressional anger flared Tuesday over the imprisonment of two Border Patrol agents for wounding a fleeing Mexican drug smuggler and concealing evidence of the shooting.
Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., urged President Bush to commute the agents' sentences, saying the 11- and 12-year prison sentences handed to ex-agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean were "harsh, disproportionate, excessive."
The two men wounded Osvaldo Aldrete Davila after a high-speed chase outside El Paso in February 2005.
Delahunt's House Foreign Affairs oversight subcommittee, which convened to investigate what role, if any, the Mexican government played in the prosecution, didn't offer a definitive answer — largely because the Justice and Homeland Security department officials refused to testify.
State Department witnesses described only tangential contact after Homeland Security opened an investigation within weeks of the shooting.
"From my own examination of the record, the government of Mexico had minimal communication with the U.S. government and no contact with Aldrete Davila," Delahunt told the subcommittee.
But Rep. Ted Poe, R-Humble, and other House conservatives said they still had questions, particularly since Mexico demanded the prosecution of a Texas deputy sheriff in a similar case handled by the same U.S. attorney's office that prosecuted Ramos and Compean.
"There's an alarming pattern here," said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif.
Said Rep. Michael McCaul, an Austin Republican whose district reaches into western Harris County: "There is a real question of how this case got to the attention of the Department of Homeland Security."
Justice and Homeland Security officials have said an internal investigation was initiated after the shooting was reported by a Border Patrol agent in Arizona friendly with Aldrete's family.
Justice refused to let San Antonio-based U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton testify Tuesday, saying his office had no dealings with the Mexican government in the case.
Homeland Security's inspector general, Richard Skinner, had agreed to testify but then backed out, Delahunt said.
It was Skinner's staff that went to Mexico and found Aldrete, working with Sutton's office to offer the smuggler immunity from prosecution for the 743-pound load of marijuana discovered in the van he abandoned before the shooting.
The hearing by Delahunt's subcommittee came just weeks after the Senate Judiciary Committee also examined the controversial prosecution, which has become a flashpoint in the immigration debate and a headache for the White House.
GOP conservatives, joined by a growing number of House Democrats, are demanding clemency for the two men, arguing that the federal government was overzealous in going after them and uncommonly generous in granting immunity and other favors to secure Aldrete's testimony.
Bush has refused to discuss his views about a possible pardon or commutation for the agents, who are gaining ever more attention on Capitol Hill.
The House Judiciary Committee plans a hearing.
And Delahunt said he intends to ask the House Homeland Security Committee to investigate.
michelle.mittelstadt@chron.com |
| |
|
Vallarta Weddings
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us