Call renewed for pardons for border agents

'Once again, I am challenging President Bush to do what is right'
Posted: April 18, 2008 8:50 pm Eastern
WorldNetDaily

Mychal Massie, the chief of the nonprofit and nonpartisan Project 21 and a columnist for WND, is renewing his call to President Bush to pardon two former U.S. Border Patrol agents who were convicted and jailed for shooting at a fleeing drug smuggler.

The call from Massie, whose Project 21 has been a leading voice of the African-American community for nearly two decades, follows a guilty plea from Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila, the smuggler in the case involving agents Jose Compean and Ignacio Ramos.

Aldrete-Davila pleaded guilty yesterday in U.S. District Court in El Paso, Texas, to drug smuggling and is to be sentenced in July.

Compean and Ramos are serving prison terms for shooting at the smuggler while he was running back to Mexico in 2005, Massie's statement noted. Aldrete-Davila conspired to smuggle marijuana into the U.S. twice after he was granted immunity to testify against the agents.

"It is time to prove that he [Bush] places the welfare of American communities and those men and women who risk their lives to protect them over the welfare of lying illicit drug smugglers," Massie said. "Pardon Ramos and Compean now, Mr. President!"