Senate hearing generates bipartisan effort to free Ramos and Compean

With a firearms law designed for drug kingpins, two former Border Patrol agents, Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, were sentenced in 2006 to an extra decade in prison for firing their guns at a Mexican drug smuggler. At a Senate Judiciary hearing this week, senators from both parties decried the use of that provision against law enforcement officers.

The former agents are serving 11- and 12-year terms, while the smuggler remains free, having cut a deal to testify against them. Senators also vented their dismay at West Texas U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton, a Bush appointee who has caught unrelenting grief from anti-illegal immigrant activists over his handling of the case. "This really is a case of prosecutorial overreaction," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who chaired the hearing. "This was still a drug dealer who was shot fleeing. Shot in the rear end fleeing. He wasn't an innocent person."

Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Tex., a 26-year Border Patrol veteran, also joined the effort this week, pressing President Bush to commute the sentences of the two. Reyes said that even though he had supported the agent's conviction, the sentence is too harsh. "This penalty levied on these agents is excessive and ... they deserve the immediate exercise of your executive clemency powers," Senators Feinstein and Cornyn wrote to the President.

Letters to the president have been a blessing for the two affected families, but Bush may not support the requests. "The president has proven with Libby that he can do whatever he wants whenever he wants," said Patty Compean, whose husband is in an Elkton, Ohio, prison. "There's no due process with him. My husband was doing his job. I don't think Libby was."

Wisconsin cop killer likely illegal alien

A decorated Wisconsin county sheriff's deputy was killed last week during a routine traffic stop. Investigators are questioning a man who has so many aliases they aren’t sure of his real name, the sheriff said. The Deputy had tried to pull over a 1995 Chevrolet mini-van, but the driver drove away into a subdivision, stopping when he reached the end of a cul-de-sac just outside Kenosha.

After they got out of their vehicles, the van driver pulled out a handgun and shot the Deputy once in the head. The gunman fled into woods just as a backup officer fired two shots. The Deputy was airlifted to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Police from numerous departments used two helicopters and dogs to search for the gunman. Residents called in tips. The suspect was found less than a mile away at 3 a.m. and gave up without incident. He was carrying a handgun. He is a 44-year-old with multiple aliases and Social Security numbers.

The Deputy, a Kenosha native, was an 18-year veteran of the Sheriff's Department who had served in the Marines. He had won several awards, including one for pulling a woman from a burning building and another for receiving shrapnel wounds after a man in a domestic dispute shot at him and hit a spotlight next to him. He and his wife have an 8-year-old daughter/

Illegal aliens are damaging U.S. citizens with 'silent war', says Minuteman founder

Minuteman Founder Jim Gilchrist said this week that the “silent war” illegal aliens are conducting against U.S. citizens is causing a higher toll than the war in Iraq. The ongoing silent war, he said, is "taking its toll in lives and domestic tranquility."

In the last five years, “45,000 U.S. residents have been killed in action via homicide or manslaughter at the hands of illegal aliens, and another 300,000 have been wounded," he said.

The financial cost is also significant, he said. Welfare benefit programs used strictly by illegal immigrants are costing "$400 billion a year - four times the annual cost of the war in Iraq," he added. "Our coffers are being plundered by those who don't deserve them," he noted, adding "Those programs were earmarked for American citizens.”

Gilchrist founded the Minuteman Project in 2004 after "years of frustrated efforts trying to get a neglectful U.S. government to simply enforce existing immigration laws. We just want to preserve a civilized society under the rule of law, under the First Amendment. That's the way the Founding Fathers set it up," he said.

Americans being Kidnapped & Killed
Threat to US citizens forces Mexican officials to lock down town.

EAST EL PASO COUNTY, Tx. - Residents of the Mexican border town of Guadalupe, across the Rio Grande from Fabens, are dealing with armed checkpoints and car-by-car searches. The small farming community is under tight surveillance by officials in Mexico, and now in the United States.
The scene in Guadalupe Bravo could most accurately be described as a town under lockdown.The Mexican military increased its presence in the town, and Hudspeth County Sheriff Arvin West tells ABC-7 he's ready to send man power into the area on the US side of the border.
Sheriff West added that his office recently heard of plans to kidnap US citizens, and transport them across the border to be killed in Guadalupe. According to Sheriff West, Victor Canello a man with ties to Fort Hancock was taken to Guadalupe and shot.
West adds that he and his office are treating the threat seriously. Sheriff West also says, "That's the innocent people that might get involved in this and get caught up in this is the people we are here to protect today...I've got officers as far away as Valverde County helping us with this...DPS, Game Wardens, and the Texas Rangers as well."
The increase in security is likely to continue for some time. Residents in Guadalupe also welcomed the strict military presence.
Editor's note: And President Bush, Sen. McCain and Ted Kennedy think open borders are a swell idea!