Another border agent due to start prison term

Another border agent
due to start prison term
Judge, prosecutor the same
as in Ramos-Compean case

Another former U.S. Border Patrol agent is due to start a prison term on Monday – this man sentenced for a typographical error that he reported to authorities himself so that the situation could be corrected, according to a new report from Friends of the Border Patrol.

And the case bears similarities to the recent case involving two other Border Patrol agents – Jose Compean and Ignacio Ramos – sentenced to prison for shooting at a drug smuggler as he fled back into Mexico, leaving behind hundreds of pounds of drugs he'd brought into the U.S., said Andy Ramirez, chairman of the FOBP.

For example, the prosecutor who handled both cases against Ramos and Compean and Noe Aleman was U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton, and the judge was Kathleen Cardone.

Sutton has been criticized for a number of his decisions in the Ramos-Compean case, including his choice to provide immunity to the drug smuggler and return him to the United States to help prosecute the law enforcement officers. And the judge, Kathleen Cardone, has been criticized for not allowing the jury to know that the incident involving the border agents was not the only drug-related incident involving the smuggler-turned-witness.

Sutton could not be reached by WND for a comment on the FOBP report.

The organization said the earlier "miscarriage" of justice happened in 2004, when Aleman, a senior patrol agent, notified authorities of a typographical error on an I-94 immigration visa form while he was in the process of adopting as his daughters his wife's nieces.

The organization said Noe and Isabel Aleman were granted unconditional adoption of Saida, Yessica and Azucena, Mrs. Aleman's nieces, in the El Paso courtroom of Judge Patricia Macias on April 12, 2004, and the couple picked up the children at the El Paso Port of Entry with Juarez, took them home and enrolled them in school.

When following up on some later paperwork, Aleman was surprised to see the children had been allowed into the United States on a document allowing only one business day, instead of the standard 90-day allowance.

"Agent Aleman then immediately reported what he and his wife thought was a typo error at the Hawkins (TX) Citizenship and Immigration Services office. He was advised by an immigration attorney … to ask for an adjudication officer and seek an extension of the 'parole' as it is known. Noe did exactly as he was advised, which he was informed by the immigration attorney, who guaranteed him that it would not be a problem having already gone through the adoption process with the Texas State District Court in El Paso," the activist group said.

But when the Alemans later were told their visa had been approved, Aleman was arrested when he arrived to pick it up and charged with harboring illegal aliens, and their three daughters were taken into custody by the government, later to be deported, FOPB said.

"Here is just a sampling," said Ramirez, "of what Sutton’s prosecutors did to the Aleman family and how their civil rights were violated:

* "First, Noe was charged with smuggling his own legally adopted nieces. Yet, the government has never opposed the adoption paperwork as finalized by the State of Texas, which remains valid today. This was the same type of false statement that Sutton did to Agents Compean and Ramos though they claim that Agents Compean and Ramos are the wrongdoers and filed false statements.

* "Next, the government through agents from the Office of Inspector General and the FBI interrogated the Aleman daughters without counsel present and were trying to get the girls to admit they were being abused, which they vehemently denied. Is this not a violation of the civil rights of their daughters for being questioned without counsel present to protect their rights? When I think of what the government did to protect the non-existent rights of career drug smuggler Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila as compared to the civil rights of the Aleman girls, it makes any logical person sick knowing what happened to the Alemans, their daughters, and fellow Agents Compean and Ramos as well as their families.

* "After no evidence of abuse was discovered from this hostile and illegal interrogation, in which the girls were traumatized psychologically; Noe and Isabel's daughters were, in retaliation for not lying to the government, placed in Removal Proceedings late June 2004.

* "At the Immigration Hearing on June 20, 2005, the girls, through their counsel, applied for Admission to the U.S. based on the fact that they are legally adopted daughters of U.S. Citizen Parents. The Immigration Judge denied the Application and ordered them removed. The Alemans appealed the decision to the Board of Immigration Appeals ('BIA'), who upheld the original ruling. The Aleman daughters were subsequently deported though their legal and only family remains here in the U.S. The girls were deported and ordered ineligible to return to the U.S. for 10 years.

* "The Aleman girls were denied all visitation, and communication to their parents by the Department of Justice throughout this process, though, again, the girls are their legally adopted daughters."

"What's peculiar," Ramirez said, "is that in conducting an independent investigation … as I previously did in the Compean & Ramos case, I learned that a one-day pass is odd as 90 days is considered the standard for issued visas. To prosecute Agent Aleman is yet another example of the abuse of power of Johnny Sutton's office and for him to go to prison in unconscionable when you consider that George W. Bush, former BP Chief and local El Paso Congressman Silver Reyes, and a large number of U.S. Senators support amnesty for what's estimated to be 20 million illegal aliens."

Ramirez also said Sutton's assistants called the Aleman girls "little whores" during testimony before the grand jury.

"What has America become to engage in such tactics against its own citizens and children?" Ramirez questioned. "Noe and Isabel should have been given medals for going through a process and bringing home and a family to their nieces who live in the dangerous Juarez, MX region."

"To think that many in Congress, and George W. Bush support amnesty for at minimum 20 million illegal aliens, while the Aleman's were prosecuted for nothing more than a typo is unconscionable, despicable, and contradictory," Ramirez said.

"What kind of disgusting place has America become to engage in such tactics against its own citizens and children. While this case has nothing to do with my job performance, it defines the hypocrisy of the so-called Department of JUSTICE who protects dopers, and not agents who do their job, families, or its children," Aleman said in a website statement.

Aleman appealed his case, but recently lost his appeal and has been ordered to report for his one-year prison term on Monday in El Paso, Ramirez said.

Ramos and Compean have been in prison since January, when they were ordered to report for their terms of 11 and 12 years.

Ramos and Compean were convicted of shooting and injuring a drug smuggler, Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila-Aldrete, as he fled back to Mexico after driving across the border with a load of 742 pounds of marijuana in February 2005.

While under the protection of the grant of immunity from Sutton, Aldrete-Davila participated in another drug delivery, but the trial transcript in the Ramos-Compean case shows prosecutors successfully sought to have Judge Kathleen Cardone seal all information about Aldrete-Davila's second drug bust from the jury.

Defense lawyers had argued the information about that incident – as documented in Department of Homeland Security and Drug Enforcement Administration investigative reports – went to the heart of the smuggler's credibility when he told jurors his February 2005 escapade was the only time he'd done something like that.

"Mr Aleman didn't discover the error and keep the info to himself, instead he immediately reported it to the Hawkins CIS office in order to secure the appropriate documentation as the honorable man he is," Ramirez said. "Yet, Johnny 'Satan' Sutton's minions chose to prosecute him, and violated not only his civil rights, but his daughters' civil rights, too, the same rights they claim Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila had though he is a known and identified drug smuggler. … We call on Congress to investigate the office of U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton … because it's clear their conduct in each case has been a disgrace, especially taking into consideration the protection of criminals at the expense of the American taxpayers while prosecuting our law enforcement officers responsible for preventing smuggling and keeping narcotics off our streets."