AMENDMENT OFFERED BY MR. POE

Mr. POE. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

The Clerk read as follows:

Amendment offered by Mr. Poe:

At the end of the bill (before the short title), insert the following:

TITLE VII--ADDITIONAL GENERAL PROVISIONS

Sec. 701. None of the funds appropriated in this Act may be used to enforce--

(1) the judgment of the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas in the case of United States v. Ignacio Ramos , Et Al. (No. EP:05-CR-856-KC) decided March 8, 2006; and

(2) the sentences imposed by the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas in the case of United States v. Ignacio Ramos , Et Al. (No. EP:05-CR-856-KC) on October 19, 2006.

Mr. POE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, in my previous life before coming to Congress, I was a prosecutor in Texas for a long time. Then I was a criminal court judge. Justice is one thing that we should always find in our country, but we don't always find it in our courts, unfortunately.

This case that has now become very famous throughout the United States happens to deal with two border agents doing their job. They come in contact with a drug dealer on the violent Texas-Mexico border. The drug dealer bring in a million dollars' worth of drugs in a van. He abandons the drugs and the van, takes off, tries to run back to Mexico, gets in a confrontation with our border agents. Shots are fired. He is shot in the buttocks and disappears into Mexico.

Our Federal Government brings the drug dealer back to the United States and grants him immunity from prosecution of a million dollars' worth of drugs in order to prosecute the border agents who were doing their job. He was given that immunity and testified against the two border agents. They were convicted and sent to a Federal penitentiary for 11 and 12 years. And for the most part of their sentence, which started in January, they have been in solitary confinement, what we reserve normally for the hardest and meanest and most violent criminals in our society.

It turns out that this drug dealer was not just a mule bringing in drugs to get a little money for his sick mother back in Mexico, but while he was waiting to testify, given immunity, he goes back to Mexico and brings in another load of drugs worth about $800,000.

Our Federal prosecutors knew about that second load of drugs, but they insisted that the jury not know about that second load of drugs, and the jury never heard about that second load of drugs.

It is relentless prosecution in this case that is chilling the effect of our border agents on the border to do their job, which is to enforce the rule of law, to arrest drug dealers. Our Federal Government had the choice to prosecute two border agents that violated

policy, or a drug dealer bringing in a million dollars' worth of drugs.

Now, you would think that public policy would say we would go after drug dealers. But no, our Federal prosecutors went after the border agents. We still don't know why they were so relentless in that prosecution, but they were. So tonight, while we are here, we have two border agents serving time in the penitentiary.

This amendment simply tries to right a wrong. It requires that no funds be used to incarcerate either one of these two border agents, Ramos and Compean, any further, and that they can be released from custody.

Almost everyone agrees that the punishment is way out of line. Even the prosecutor said that once. Last week the Senate held hearings on the prosecution of this case in a bipartisan manner and said that these sentences were way out of line. And so this amendment will simply allow no Federal funds to be used to incarcerate these two border agents.

Hopefully the House will continue to have hearings on why these two agents and other border agents have been prosecuted by the Western District of Texas while ignoring other violations of the law by drug dealers.

I hope that my fellow colleagues on both sides of the aisle would agree to support this amendment and to allow the release of these two individuals, and not allow any Federal funds to be used to incarcerate two men who were simply doing their job for the rest of us on the violent Texas border.

Mr. CULBERSON. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Texas is recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. CULBERSON. Mr. Chairman, every American is born with an innate sense of fairness and what is right and wrong. This case, more than any other, has struck a chord among Americans as being fundamentally unjust and flat wrong; that two law enforcement officers who swore an oath to protect this Nation, who were out on that violent Texas-Mexico border to protect this Nation against criminals and terrorists, every American understands the case where the two Border Patrol agents doing their job are thrown in prison for 11 and 12 years, and the drug smuggler goes free with a visa to pass back and forth as often as he wants. And the drug smuggler sues us, the taxpayers, for millions of dollars. Every American gets that.

I have never seen a level of outrage among my constituents and really across the country on any issue as there has been on this issue of freeing Border Patrol Agents Ramos and Compean.

It is patently unfair these two men, whatever you may say about the circumstances of the case, if they improperly picked up shell casings, they did not report the shooting, it is an administrative violation. At most you fire them from their job. But to be sentenced to 10 to 12 years in prison, these two law enforcement officers, to be sentenced to prison for 10 to 12 years is an outrage. It is just, it is unfair. The drug smuggler to this day is free.

As Judge POE said, the drug smuggler ran another load of dope into the United States, and the DEA knew about it during the trial of this case. This guy ran more drugs into the United States, and the prosecutor ordered the DEA not to arrest him and let him go free.

Every American understands this case. People may not have understood the Nigerian oil barge transfer and the Enron case; everybody gets this one. And the Congress, I am very proud to stand here tonight with many, many other Members of Congress who have asked the President first to pardon these two officers. And now that they are in prison and have suffered so much and have lost everything, many of my colleagues, who you will hear speak, have joined together in writing a letter and asking the President, and we reiterate that call tonight, Mr. Chairman, asking the President to commute the sentences of two Border Patrol agents, Ramos and Compean, for the same reason that he commuted the case of Scooter Libby.

In the case of Scooter Libby, the President said the sentence did not fit the crime. Certainly that is true here. If they picked up shell casings and didn't report the shooting, you don't go to prison for 10 and 11 years. In the case of Scooter Libby, the President said Scooter Libby had already suffered enough. Clearly these two Border Patrol agents have already suffered enough. They have lost everything. Their lives have been destroyed. They have been thrown in prison. It is just simply wrong for their incarceration to continue another day.

For whatever reason, the White House is turning a deaf ear on the call of the American people, the overwhelming outrage of the American people to have these two men released from prison. So what other choice do we have, Mr. Chairman, as Members of Congress, but to cut off the funding to the Bureau of Prisons to incarcerate them? We cannot as Members of Congress send a stronger signal to the White House and to the American people how committed we are to protecting this border and standing behind our law enforcement agents, and letting the Border Patrol agents know that we are proud of them and support the work that they are doing for the sake of our children and for the sake of our constituents. We understand clearly that we will never win the war on terror until we have truly protected our borders.

The border today is unprotected and wide open. If you cross in Arizona, you won't even be arrested the first 15 times you cross over. You're going to be put right back across the border.

If you cross in Brownsville, an agent told us on a trip just a couple of weeks ago, Brownsville will only arrest an illegal alien if they come up and knock on the window of the vehicle.

But yet, right next door in Del Rio, thank God Del Rio is arresting everybody. In Del Rio, using existing law and existing resources, Federal Judge Alia Ludlum, Border Patrol Sector Chief Randy Hill are arresting every single illegal alien crossing the border in Del Rio. They have zero tolerance for illegal aliens crossing in Del Rio. The local community loves it because it keeps the streets safe, the schools safe, the business community thriving. The illegal crossings have plummeted, burglaries have plummeted, and the result in Del Rio is peace and quiet. Yet, right next door in Brownsville there's chaos.

So, we all of us have a stake as Americans. In winning the war on terror, you've got to secure the border. No better way to secure the border than enforce existing law, and the best way to make sure that our agents out there in the field know that they're going to have the support of the American people is for the President to step up and commute the sentences of these two border patrol agents.

Until that happens, it is up to us here in Congress to do all that we can to send a message to every border patrol agent that we're doing everything within our power, officers of the law, to support you, to tell you we're proud of you. You are in front lines of the war on terror on the border, just as our soldiers are in Iraq.

I urge the Members of the House to support Mr. Poe's amendment so we can stop the funding of the incarceration of these two agents and send as strong as possible a message to the White House and, frankly, also to every law enforcement agent in the field that we're proud of you and that we want you to protect our border.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from West Virginia is recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. Well, with Mr. Culberson speaking on this issue with such knowledge, he's a member of our subcommittee and I respect his knowledge of border issues so much that I approach this debate with fear and trembling. I know that he is passionate about this issue as he has talked with me about it before, in addition with the other border issues that I'm totally serious he is nigh an expert on.

Nevertheless, Mr. Chairman, I have to rise in opposition to this amendment for a number of reasons, but principally, let's get our jobs straight here. We're article I. We're the legislature. We pass the laws. We appropriate the dollars, and then the executive branch, of course they administer, and it goes on and on.

But the executive branch is article III, and the executive branch takes

these criminal cases and they process them. I heard some really excellent defense summary arguments here before juries in support of this amendment. I cannot imagine a body less capable, less appropriate to adjudicate the issues surrounding the incarceration, conviction, prosecuting of the cases against these two gentlemen than the United States House of Representatives.

First of all, it is a very serious issue, and if we were to act as a jury, we ought to be sitting here. And look around and we're not, not very many of us.

But secondly, it's not at all the appropriate forum. So we really shouldn't even be taking this up. This is a limitation amendment on an expenditure of funds to incarcerate two individuals who have been processed, due process arguably, and have had a very unfavorable result so far as they are concerned. This issue ought to be resolved in the courts surely, or if the President of the United States wanted to take it up, he has the power that we don't have, to my knowledge. He has a pardoning power. We don't have that here, but in effect, we are attempting to act as if we did here with these two amendments.

So I don't even begin to speak to the merits of the cases, and some folks have spoken to the merits of the cases here. I don't have the facts to argue the case, but I do know this is a particularly inappropriate forum and a particularly inappropriate and imperfect process by which to address these gentlemen's grievances.

So I rise in opposition to the amendment. I trust the body will recognize the merit of the arguments that I'm making, because I think they're sound, and will likewise oppose these amendments.

Mr. Chairman, with that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Colorado is recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Chairman, in fact, this is not a unique situation, unique to the extent that the House has not acted before in a criminal case of this nature, but in fact, the House has acted in the past to intervene in cases where we have determined that the outcome was something we did not agree with. We've done it. We've stripped courts of certain abilities to actually hear cases.

In the past, we've actually passed legislation to change or overturn cases. One was, of course, the case of the Ten Commandments. Another one was, I believe, Congressman BERNIE SANDERS at the time passed a bill to overturn a case with regard to pension funds. So it is not unique that we would be doing this.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. TANCREDO. I yield to the gentleman from West Virginia.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. Mr. Chairman, my only point is that we have the power to define jurisdictions for the courts. It's in the Constitution. We don't have power to adjudicate the guilt or innocence of two individuals.

Mr. TANCREDO. Reclaiming my time, it is again not the position that we are taking here that we are, in fact, changing the decision of the court in regard to their guilt or innocence. We are saying that the punishment handed down is far in excess of what it is they may have done wrong, and that is something I think that we have the absolute ability and right to do here.

These two gentlemen have served now 190 days, 180 days, something, already in prison, and for what? I mean, the most significant thing that we can actually determine, even according to some of the discussions that have been held and some of the statements that have been made by the prosecuting attorney, they're sorry. They made mistakes in terms of maybe using the type of prosecution that would require this kind of penalty. They have even said this may have been the wrong thing to do. Members of the jury have indicated that if they had seen all of the information now provided to them they would not have voted this way.

So it isn't an issue of the facts of the case so much as it is whether or not we believe these people have actually spent enough time in jail, have they been punished according to the crime. And I would suggest to the gentleman that if you look at this case carefully, certainly that is the case.

The person that brought this stuff through, the individual that actually was the drug dealer, he is walking free. I have visited Mr. Ramos in prison after he was severely beaten in his cell. They attacked him in his cell, of course, because they found out he was a Federal agent, and I went down there and visited him. You cannot imagine how, in a way, heartbreaking it is to see this guy in the orange jumpsuit, in shackles, and knowing that he is being deprived of the comfort of his own family, as is Mr. Compean, and here's a drug dealer that's going free in the meantime. It is absolutely incredible. This is a travesty.

We have begged the President to please become involved with this, please pardon, please commute. He has chosen not to. This is the only option we have open to us, and that is why we are doing what we're doing tonight.

And yes, to some extent, I understand that it is not a common practice here, but I think the situation is not an ordinary situation where we have two people who have sworn to defend and protect this country. They are in jail. They have served enough time; that's what we are saying. They have served enough time.

Please adopt the Poe-Tancredo-Hunter amendment.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. TANCREDO. I yield to the gentleman from West Virginia.

Mr. MOLLOHAN. Mr. Chairman, I commend the sentiments of the gentleman who's bringing forth this amendment. I don't for a second do anything but think that that's laudable, and I make no judgment about the merits of this case. As the gentleman describes the merits in the favor of these gentlemen, they're powerful. I mean, it sounds like the equities are running all in their favor. I make no comment on that at all because I don't know the facts. And I have read about it, and it does make one sympathetic based upon the facts as you cited.

But I don't make any judgments about that. I just oppose it because I don't think this is the right forum. The President, of course, would be an appropriate forum, but that's the only basis of my concern about the amendment. So I commend the gentleman for bringing the issue to the House.

Mr. TANCREDO. I thank the gentleman. If there were another way to do this, I assure you we would look at it. We have tried everything imaginable to get these two people to actually get justice, and the justice would be to set them free. And that is what I suggest we do with this amendment, and I certainly would urge this body to adopt the Poe-Hunter-Tancredo amendment.

Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from California is recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman, I didn't come here to speak on this issue. I've certainly, I think like most Members of Congress, been following the sensation that television and others have made of this issue. But in the debate, I just wanted to share a couple of things that I've observed as a member of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security and as Member of Congress who spent several days traveling all along the border with the Border Patrol.

It was very interesting because I ran into a lot of people that had been detained. I speak Spanish and was able to interview many of the people that were detained, and we don't really get into the day-to-day administration of the detention, release and so on. What was very interesting and kind of surprising to me, because this case has been argued in the media and certainly here on the floor, I was a little bit shocked by the last speaker who indicated that this is not a matter of facts. It is a matter of facts, and I think that we don't always deal with the facts.

I would point out that the drug dealer, the person that was shot in this case, was released. Did you know that the U.S. Attorney's office does not prosecute anybody who brings less than $5,000 worth of drugs across the border, less than $5,000? A lot of those marijuana packs that the smugglers carry are determined to be less than $5,000, and so nobody who is essentially

a mula is arrested, arrested but not detained.

We also, when we detain people, we give them the option, Do you understand you're now arrested? You have the right to a trial by jury as anybody in this country would have a right to unless you waive it. And 99.9 percent of everybody waives that and, therefore, gets released to their country of origin.

So this catch-and-release is not unusual. In fact, it's the norm, and the fact that this gentleman wasn't prosecuted for his drug record is of other facts.

What really struck me, and I'm just sharing, this is anecdotal information, but I think this amendment and the Congress bringing this up, in my opinion, is an abuse of power. Why? Because if, indeed, and I don't know the sentencing of these border patrolmen, but I know that there is a process if these sentences are extreme, you can appeal those. We have a sentencing commission, and the courts certainly review that. And so I think there is a remedy within our justice system to appeal where the sentences are too harsh.

But here's the thing that's most interesting to me. I didn't find one single member of the Border Patrol that supported these two people that had been arrested, who had been convicted by trial of law. So, on this floor, you're making them out as national heroes. They were convicted in a court of law in the United States for wrongdoing, and I think that, as the chairman has indicated, that it is not wise for the Congress to second-guess and make this a sensational case.

I've visited high school friends who were convicted of drug issues in prison, and I sympathize with everything that people say about these gentlemen, about their families and about the situation of being incarcerated. But I'm also concerned as a Member of Congress that we ought not to override the jurisprudence system that we've established in this country, and that I do think that the remedies in law lie in a court of law, and therefore, this amendment is not appropriate.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from California is recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, let me explain why this case is different from all the rest. This is an extraordinary case. It's a case which, even if you accept the drug dealer's word and all of his testimony as fact, finds results in not only the Members who have sponsored this amendment, Mr. Poe, Mr. Tancredo, myself, Mr. Rohrabacher, Mr. Culberson and many others, that list should be extended to about 1 million ordinary Americans who now know the basic facts of this case, having been laid out in hearings in the other body and soon to be laid out in hearings here, because these gentlemen have been given murder verdicts. They have been given time in excess of the average convicted murderer in the United States.

That's what makes this case so extraordinary, along with the facts that attend the way evidence was kept from the jury.

Let me just explain this extraordinary case, this case in which the so-called victim was moving close to $1 million of drugs across the border, was shot, was wounded, was brought back into the United States, given immunity to testify against these two Border Patrol agents.

Yet after he had been given immunity, and presumably had told the U.S. attorney that in exchange for that immunity he would not continue to move narcotics, he was connected with another massive case of moving almost another $1 million of drugs across the border. That information was never communicated to the court, even though the testimony of that drug dealer is the testimony that sent both these agents to the penitentiary for, essentially, murder sentences; that is, 11 and 12 years respectively.

Certainly the U.S. Government at that point had an obligation to go to the court and tell the court that, indeed, the credibility of their key witness had been doubly compromised by this second movement of narcotics.

Lastly, let me just say this: Pardons are given, commutations are given. This is, I think you could look at this as maybe another species of commutation. That is, if the Congress speaks loud and clear, and the President signs this bill, then that will be a commutation of the sentence of Agents Compean and Ramos .

In light of the commutations that have been given recently by the executive branch, I think we need to remember that people that live in small houses sometimes have a right to commutations of sentences, just like people who live in big houses.

In this case, these two Border Patrol men are now in isolation, having spent a long time in jail, Mr. Ramos having been beaten up. Their families, most of us have met their families. This is a matter of little children wanting to see their daddies come home who, in my estimation, have not broken any law anywhere as significant as that which would justify these massive sentences that they have been given, this 11 and 12 years in Federal penitentiary, respectively.

Let me add my voice to support of this amendment, which I, along with a number of other colleagues have cosponsored with our great friend from Texas (Mr. Poe).

Mr. Speaker, I yield to Mr. Poe the balance of my time.

Mr. POE. Mr. Chairman, how much time do I have?

The CHAIRMAN. There is 1 minute remaining.

Mr. POE. I appreciate the support. I would like to comment on the comments earlier by the gentleman from California.

It is true. I don't know if the American public knows this, but if drug dealers bring in $5,000 of drugs or less, they are not prosecuted. But this wasn't a $5,000 case. The drug dealer first brought in $1 million worth of drugs, and in the second case he snuck in $800,000 worth of drugs. The jury was never told about that.

The other thing I would like to point out is that Members of Congress met with the Homeland Security inspector general about this case. They gave us information that turned out not to be true. Mr. Skinner finally testified under oath before Congress that the information they gave us about this case was false. That is disconcerting in this type of matter when we have Homeland Security telling Members of Congress things that are not true about this particular matter.

I don't have time to go on that, but I would ask for support of this case. This is the only remedy available. In my judicial experience, I do believe in our court system, and our courts eventually will work this case out. It will be reversed, but meanwhile they are in jail. The only way they can get out of jail is if we pass this amendment. I appreciate it.

Mr. GOODE. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Virginia is recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. GOODE. Mr. Chairman, I was over in my office signing letters, and I heard the discussion on the floor about Ramos and Compean, and I heard what the great gentleman from West Virginia had to say. He talked about procedures and how, really, this would be better off left to the courts in some other avenue.

But this is not about procedure. It's not about some rules and regulations that we must adhere to over what is just. What is just in this case is to set Ramos and Compean free.

This is an issue of what's right for the United States of America. The morale of our Border Patrol has had a truck driven through it by those who have prosecuted and persecuted Ramos and Compean. They deserve no more prosecution. They deserve no more persecution. They need to be set free and enhance the morale of our Border Patrol and enhance the security and integrity of the United States of America.

This is an issue about our borders. If you believe that our borders should be secure, and if you believe that those who enforce our borders should be stood up for, you need to vote ``yes'' for this amendment.

I ask you to vote for our country. Vote for our sovereignty, vote for our borders and vote ``yes'' for the Poe-Hunter-Tancredo amendment.

Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from California is recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Chairman, this amendment would prevent the expenditures of any funds for the purpose of enforcing the judgment or imposing the sentences handed down in the case of United States v. Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean.

As most of you know, President Bush so far has rejected appeals by many of us for a pardon for these two Border Patrol agents who are now sitting in Federal prison for shooting a professional drug smuggler who worked for the cartels, who was fleeing back across the Rio Grande. These two agents are now serving 11 and 12 years, respectively.

I have talked to many Border Patrol agents about these cases, about the circumstances they face down there. I haven't found any that don't support Jose Compean and Ignacio Ramos , and certainly their association supports them fully.

In the meantime, of course, the great irony here is the smuggler they apprehended for attempting to smuggle some 750 pounds of drugs into our country is free.

The U.S. attorney here claimed that the agents fired on an unarmed man, but how do we know that? Because the U.S. attorney asked the jury to take the smuggler's word for that and to disbelieve the two Border Patrol agents who testified they thought he had a gun.

I can tell you I held numerous hearings down there on the border in Texas in the past, over 400 attacks on our Border Patrol agents. The family members of the individual here who was smuggling say he would not move drugs without a gun on him. That is what his own family says about him.

Frankly, it does take a stretch of the imagination to believe that an employee of a cartel down there would not have a gun somewhere near him moving this quantity of drugs.

Now, the U.S. attorney said the agents failed to file a report for their actions, and that proved they tried to cover up the shooting. I am not sure that was true. Two of their supervisors were on the scene within minutes, and the agents made a verbal report to them, according to Ramos and Compean.

Failing to file a written report is an administration violation and normally punishable by a 3-day suspension, but it is the supervisor who is supposed to file that report, as I understand it, not the agents.

The U.S. attorney says that Ramos and Compean were convicted by a jury in Texas after all the evidence was presented. But, the U.S. Attorney, his team, prevented crucial evidence from being admitted in the trial. For example, the jury did not learn that the smuggler committed a second smuggling operation while he was under the grant of immunity given by the U.S. attorney. That information was withheld from the jury while it was argued that the agents, that the Border Patrol agents, couldn't have known he was a drug smuggler, even though there was this quantity of drugs in his van.

The U.S. attorney had prosecutorial discretion in choosing to do this, and he chose to throw the book at Ramos and Compean while giving the professional drug smuggler a visa that allowed him free passage across our border to smuggle again. The attorneys for Ramos and Compean have filed an appeal with the U.S. circuit court asking for a new trial. They deserve a new trial. Yet the quickest and surest way to manifest this injustice is for President Bush to grant a full pardon or, at a minimum, a commutation of the prison sentence.

These men deserve better, and today we have an opportunity to right that wrong. By voting for this amendment to free these men, Congress will not only be correcting a terrible mistake, it will begin repairing the morale and effectiveness of our Border Patrol that have been damaged by, frankly, these reckless actions.

It's time to send a different message to both the courageous men and women of the Border Patrol and to the mules and to the bosses in the drug cartels. Let's send that message today by telling the cartels that our Border Patrol means business, not business as usual.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from California is recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, the Ramos and Compean prosecution has been the greatest miscarriage of justice in my 30 years in Washington, DC, and, believe me, I have seen a lot.

Ramos and Compean were veteran Border Patrol agents. They had unblemished records. They had both served in the military. Ramos and Compean were veterans of the Border Patrol, 5 and 10 years, respectively. Both had been in the military. In fact, Mr. Ramos , I believe, had been a 10-year veteran. He was a naval officer in the Navy Reserve for 10 years. Ramos had been nominated the year before as Border Patrol Agent of the Year.

Yet these two agents, their lives have been destroyed, and they have been vilified by Department of Justice officials and this administration. One day 2 years ago, they interdicted a drug dealer. After a scuffle ensued, the drug dealer ran toward the border, shots were fired, the drug dealer was shot in the buttocks. At the end of this incident that took place in just a few minutes, where a split-second decision was made to shoot their weapons, they decided that he had gotten away. They didn't know that the drug dealer had been hit.

There is where they made their mistake. They decided to not go through the 8 hours of arduous drudgery of filling out all of the reports that are necessary, the paperwork that is necessary when there is a shooting incident. So they and their supervisors, I might add, helped collect the little shell casings and determined, well, the guy didn't get hit, we will just forget it.

Well, that was a violation of procedure, yes. For that they might have deserved a suspension. Instead, this administration chose to throw the book at these men and turn what should have been just a violation of procedure, perhaps just a paperwork mistake, which sometimes happens even here in this body, they turned that into a felony.

They have destroyed the lives of these two defenders of our country who have spent 5 and 10 years of their lives willing to take bullets for us on the border. But our administration, this administration, decided to throw the book at them and give a free pass to the drug dealer, to the man who is bringing in $1 million worth of narcotics into our country.

That decision is so indefensible that I believe that the administration has been trying to cover up for that mistaken decision since that moment. What we have had, for those of us who have been looking into this, is we have been completely stonewalled by this administration, by the Department of Justice, by U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton in trying to get the information about the drug dealer and the free passes, the free passes that he had to transit into our country unescorted after this incident.

The fact of the matter is that the jury was told that the drug dealer involved was a one-timer who was trying to raise money so he could buy medicine for his mother, his sick mother. That was a lie that was presented to the jury, a lie.

Let me repeat that. It was not true, and the prosecutors understood they were given something not true. In fact, we were told by the U.S. attorney, Johnny Sutton, well, the fact that the information that the drug dealer had been picked up a second time before that trial was kept from the jury, but that the judge was the one who decided that.

That too is a lie. A lawyer may believe that, but the fact is we know the prosecutors were the ones who demanded the judge. It was their motion to keep that from the jury.

So why do we have an administration that feels so intent on destroying the lives of these two Border Patrol agents that they vilified them, that they keep information from the jury? This whole thing stinks to high heaven and the smell seems to be emanating from the White House.

Ladies and gentlemen, these are two people, two men, two brave heroes who were defending our country every bit as much as those men and women who are overseas right now defending our country. They were willing to risk their lives for us. We should not sit aside and let them languish in prison as their families go down into abject poverty without any health care, without any source of income. Their retirement benefits are destroyed. This is

the most mean-spirited, nasty attack on some of the defenders of our country that I have ever seen in my lifetime. We cannot let it sit. If we are patriotic Americans, it doesn't go to just posture ourselves with the defenders of this country and then let these two men languish in prison.

The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman from California has expired.

(On request of Mr. Mollohan, and by unanimous consent, Mr. Rohrabacher was allowed to proceed for 3 additional minutes.)

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, I would ask my colleagues to search their hearts. We can do something about this.

You know, first of all, it has been a dismay to me to see how we have treated each other in this body. I don't know why, but people are looking to bring down each other because people disagree. We can understand that with philosophical differences, but how can we ever justify someone who has gone out of their way, our representatives in the Department of Justice going out of their way to bring down two defenders, turning a paperwork mistake, a procedural error, into a felony which has destroyed these men's lives.

If we stand up for Ramos and Compean, we stand up for the people of the United States. They know that; they are watching us. They know if we really care about the little guy, and that is what this is all about. We care about the little guy because that is what America is all about.

I support the amendment and ask my colleagues to join me in doing so.

Mr. BILBRAY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from California is recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. BILBRAY. To the gentleman from West Virginia, let me just say I know your concern about the process here. But I think that if you reviewed this situation and the process these two Border Patrol agents went through, you would understand why some of us are standing up and saying, first of all, the 10-year minimum for the commission of a crime while carrying a firearm, it was used to apply to these agents, was never meant to apply to law enforcement agents who are required by law to carry firearms. And I think we can kind of understand.

Remember when we passed that and it went through, it was sort of like, criminals, if you are going to engage in criminal activity, leave your gun at home, as a way of lowering the level of violence and the potential violence of criminals carrying firearms at the time of the commission of the crime.

This law that we passed at the Federal level is being applied to Federal officers who are required by statute to carry a firearm. And so now what we have is that we have law enforcement agents who are sworn to serve the American people, that are being prosecuted under a statute that says we are going to nail you because you were carrying a firearm during the commission of a crime when, as a requirement of their employment, they had to carry the firearm.

Doesn't anybody else find this kind of absurd, if not ridiculous?

And all I have to say is I would sincerely hope that the chairman of the committee will take a second thought about opposing this amendment, because I think in all fairness the American people are saying we have two agents who were serving their Nation as best as they could. They might have made a mistake that should have been administered through an administrative process; and those of us in local government that have worked with law enforcement know this, excessive force happens in certain situations.

But this is where a Federal law that we passed in Congress that says we are going to nail the criminals who use firearms in the commission of a crime and tell them don't ever carry a firearm when you are thinking of breaking a crime, that that law is being applied to our agents who are executing the requirements of Federal law. That was never the intention of this law, but it is being applied to these two agents.

So I just have to say sincerely, I would really ask the chairman to reconsider his opposition to this amendment. I think fair-minded people that know why this Federal law was passed know that it was not meant for Border Patrol agents or any Federal agents that are required to carry a firearm, to use this law against those agents. And if you can do it to Border Patrol agents, you can do it to FBI agents, you can do it to everybody.

Now, let me just say something about the unique situation that we are seeing down at the border. At this location, Mr. Chairman, within the month of this incident you had Border Patrol agents under fire by automatic gunfire, AK-47s firing at our agents from across the border. There was good reason to think that our agents might have been a little more active with their guns than we might have preferred. But, in all fairness, it really comes down to: Are we willing to stand up and say there has been a mistake, that mistake needs to be addressed, needs to be reassessed, and do we now relinquish our responsibility of the budget to the executive branch where we say these agents have been wronged?

And if those of you that want to talk about this, in all the years I was in local government I saw excessive force cases brought very seldom. In this one sector, this Federal attorney has brought excessive force cases against three different law enforcement officers. Every one of them that we know of, or I know of, just happened to have been cases that involved illegal aliens, drug smugglers, foreign nationals committing a crime. That is really unique. I have never heard of that kind of situation occurring anywhere else.

In this case, it is time that we stand up and we say, you have the jurisdiction to prosecute, you have the jurisdiction not to give clemency on this issue, but we have the jurisdiction of saying you will not use the taxpayers' funds to prosecute these men.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Rhode Island is recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. KENNEDY. I understand, Mr. Chairman, the President of the United States today issued a press release saying that he was not going to ask that these officers be allowed out on bail or bond even after it was requested that they do be permitted to be released on bail and bond. I find it regrettable that the President did not give some explanation for why he didn't give these officers an opportunity to be given release on bail or bond as other people who would be on trial or given that kind of opportunity would otherwise be given.

At the very least, I think the President, given the nature of these officers being in law enforcement, has an obligation to ensure their security when they are in prison because they are, I understand, at greater threat to their own lives being law enforcement officers if they are incarcerated. And I would hope that the Department of Justice in its incarceration procedures does take into account the very increased threat level to these officers because of the nature of them being law enforcement officers.

That being said, however, we do have to keep in mind that it is a Bush-appointed U.S. Attorney that prosecuted these Border Patrol officers and it was a jury of a U.S. citizens who rendered a verdict based upon the U.S. law and based upon the evidence of U.S. law, not the Members of Congress here standing based upon newspapers and based upon Fox news stories and everything else, but based upon the evidence in a case presented to a jury through an evidentiary hearing. And that is what we need to abide by is a legal process. We can't abide by a political process.

If we were to abide by political process every time a legal case came along and were to suspend the process every time we thought one case was more popular than the other, it would just upend the idea of justice as we know it in this country, because I think all of us could come here to the floor and tell of a unique story where someone was wronged by the system of justice in this country.

And I think that it is kind of ironic that my friends are so outraged by mandatory minimums with guns, because they are so outraged by mandatory minimums with everything, and yet they are the first ones to pass these mandatory minimums and then wonder, now finding their own friends in the behind and saying, no, we can't have it touch our friends, and then all of a sudden they don't want it that way.

Well, you know what? There are lots of people in this country who have been

caught behind these mandatory minimums who have just been caught in the wrong place at the wrong time that are now serving life sentences. Kids that have been caught in ghettos just because they have been friends of friends who have been part of gangs. Now that they have been associated with gangs, they have gotten the gang-related crime tagged onto them, which has added another 10 years to their sentence, and that has been a mandatory minimum just because of some law that we have passed saying that you get another 10 years because you are related to a gang member. Now it is very interesting that all of a sudden people are so outraged by these minimums that have been tacked on to these officers carrying firearms in the commission of a crime.

So I just think that we should all pause for a moment when we think about being tough on crime. Here is a perfect example of where it comes back to bite us in the you-know-where when we think that we are trying to be tough on crime and then find out that sometimes when we are passing these mandatory minimums it doesn't always work out the way we expected it to be.

Mr. BILBRAY. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. KENNEDY. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. BILBRAY. I think you agree, though, that when we talked about the 10-year minimum, the jury was told that they had to administer the 10-year execution based on the commission of the crime. And I think you were here when the 10-year minimum was passed. I think you would agree the idea was to try to encourage anybody that, if you are going to do something that was illegal, you don't carry a gun, because it would lower that level of potential.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman is recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I very much appreciate the gentlemen that have bought this amendment to the floor. It is something that all America has been fixated upon, because they understand the injustice that underlies the prosecution of these two Border Patrol officers. And I would like to characterize this perhaps a little bit differently.

Listening to the gentleman, my friend who just got done speaking, talking about the mandatory minimums being something that comes back to bite us in the you-know-where, no, this isn't the mandatory minimum issue that is before us tonight. This is the equivalent of a private bill.

We have brought private bills through this Congress a number of times when we see issues that there is such an egregious case for specific individuals that we will generally bring that language through the Judiciary Committee, through the Immigration Subcommittee and on through Judiciary and onto the floor. It has happened a number of times in my time here in Congress. In fact, I have one here today that one of your colleagues from your side of the aisle offered to me, and I will consider it. But this is actually in my jacket pocket. This is a private bill asking for relief for people who have violated the law but find themselves in unique circumstances and pleading upon this Congress to make an exception because they are unique circumstances, and this is a measure to our heart.

What does our heart have to say to us when you see two Border Patrol officers who put their lives on the line on a daily basis and find themselves caught in this legalistic vice that has unfolded because, I think, of a discretionary decision by a U.S. Attorney in his prosecution?

What I am concerned about is if this Congress doesn't stand up and defend these two people, Ramos and Compean, Border Patrol officers will be reluctant to pull their weapon in the line of duty and they will be in the line of fire. And I am afraid we will lose one or more Border Patrol officers in the line of duty because they will be hesitant to ever pull their weapon. That is a piece of their thing.

I yield to the gentleman from Texas, and again thank him for his work in bringing this amendment to the floor.

Mr. POE. I thank the gentleman from Iowa for yielding.

I know that we've discussed this issue a lot tonight, but it's important because it has to do with the most important concept that any of us have, liberty. And we have found in the investigation of this case that the U.S. Attorney's Office has done everything it can to make sure that these two people stay in jail.

The key to this is that the jury did decide the facts of this case, but the jury didn't get all the facts given to them under the law. There was another case where the drug dealer brought in another $800,000 worth of drugs while he's running free at American taxpayer expense, and brings in these drugs while he's waiting to testify. Anybody who served on any jury in the country would want to know about that second case. This jury was prohibited from knowing about that because of the insistence and the relentless prosecutor who demanded that the jury not hear about all of the facts.

The question is why? Why wouldn't the prosecutor want the jury to know all the truth about this case?

We don't know. We do know that the Mexican Government, in its righteous indignation, sent a speedy letter over to the U.S. Attorney's Office demanding prosecution of these border agents. The Mexican Government dealing in our court system, their opinion is irrelevant, I submit, Mr. Chairman.

And this case is a case where our Border Patrol agents are in Fabans, Texas. I don't believe there's been a person here that's been to Fabans, Texas, unless they've gone there on purpose to see the border. It's a violent, dangerous, desolate area. And based upon the rules they have to follow, they cannot fire their weapon unless they are fired upon. In other words, they've got to take a bullet before they can defend the border. And they operate under that environment because of the national security of our border.

In this case, overreaching by the prosecutor; too heavy a sentence. He even said so later after the prosecution. And what this does is release these two individuals while the appeal goes on. It releases them from custody of our Federal Government. And it's the responsibility of Congress in further investigations to find out why our Western District of Texas is so relentless in prosecuting border protectors. And this is one way we can do something. We have that authority. We can cut the funds, and we ought to cut the funds that incarcerate these two individuals. We ought to pass this amendment in a bipartisan manner.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I'd say also there is a bill following this. If this doesn't do the job, I have a bill ready to introduce that grants them a new trial, a de novo review, and it removes the jurisdiction to the Northern District of Texas.

We're going to find a solution this. We're going to stand up and defend Ramos and Compean. This sends the message. It might get the job done. I urge adoption.

I yield back.

Mr. GILCHREST. I move to strike the last word.

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Maryland is recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Chairman, what I would like to do is have a colloquy with the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe) to inquire about some of the comments that have been made here tonight so I can better understand Congress's role in this particular judicial decision, court decision, conviction in Texas, just to give me a little comfort in trying to understand our role in this case and whether or not it is appropriate.

Can the gentleman from Texas tell me, after the incident occurred with the border agents and the drug dealer, who brought that information to the U.S. attorney in the very beginning? Does anybody know that?

Mr. POE. There's a disagreement over who brought that to them. We first heard that the Mexican Consulate brought it to someone working in the Federal Government. And then we also heard that another border agent brought it, so I don't know the answer to that question.

Mr. GILCHREST. So that's not clear.

Did the border agents supervisors, or do you have any idea who spoke, if there was, in fact, a grand jury, to determine whether or not there was enough evidence?

Mr. POE. There was a grand jury investigation. I do not know who testified. The border supervisors were on the scene and were aware of the entire circumstances.

No one knew that the drug dealer who disappeared back into Mexico had even been shot, and so they thought that the person was shot at and he disappeared. And the next thing they know, they are being questioned about 30 to 60 days later about the incident that occurred.

Mr. GILCHREST. Under those circumstances, with the supervisors aware of the actions of the border agents, the defendant subsequently was found out to be wounded, under those circumstances, in a Federal court, did the prosecutor take into consideration those mitigating circumstances that border agents are often, and in your case, in the area where you represent, a very dangerous situation? This was a known drug smuggler. He had smuggled in $1 million worth of drugs. He had, apparently, a violent past.

What sentencing guidelines did the prosecutor use to give these border agents 11 years and then 12 years?

Mr. POE. The border agents were offered, if they pled guilty to the offense, 2 years incarceration. If they did not plead guilty and went to trial, the prosecutor added the section under our law, 924(c) section that required or would allow a mandatory additional 10 years incarceration because a weapon was used. That is subject to appeal as to whether that applies to peace officers or not. That was added. Therefore they received 11 and 12 years in the penitentiary after the trial and after sentencing because they would not plead guilty for a crime they didn't do.

Mr. GILCHREST. Has there been an appeal filed on behalf of the defendants?

Mr. POE. Yes. There has been an appeal. Both of these cases are on appeal, and they are in custody while these cases are on appeal.

Mr. GILCHREST. And it is also under appeal to determine whether or not the sentencing guidelines that we passed in the House applied in this case?

Mr. POE. The indictment on its face is being challenged because in the indictment it alleges the deadly weapon or the brandishing of a firearm, which requires an additional 10 years. That is also contested on appeal, whether it applies to peace officers or not.

Mr. GILCHREST. Was it the intent of this Congress that that particular statute be applied to a peace officer or a border agent in defense of the country, the border or his own life?

Mr. POE. In my opinion, absolutely not. It applies to other cases where a firearm is used, such as in a robbery. It doesn't apply to border agents who are required to use and possess a firearm while they are on duty. And so it is not, in my opinion, the intent of Congress. And, of course, that will be litigated on appeal as well.

Mr. GILCHREST. I thank the gentleman for answering the questions.

I yield back the balance of my time.

The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe).

The amendment was agreed to.