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Border agent says China ordered his prosecution A Border Patrol agent who was acquitted of a charge of using excessive force during a 2004 arrest of a Chinese national on suspicion of drug smuggling is suing the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for $25 million. And in a companion lawsuit, Robert Rhodes is seeking another $25 million from three Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents with the Office of Professional Responsibility. He says the agents disregarded their oaths by pursuing a politically motivated prosecution against him to appease their superiors, who allegedly were seeking to do what communist China wanted. "I was involved in a political prosecution that our government began at the demand of the government of communist China," Rhodes told WND. "The prosecution was promised to China by then-Secretary of State Colin Powell and then-Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Tom Ridge." His lawyer, Steven Cohen, concurs. "My client's prosecution was ordered by the Bush administration to appease the Chinese government," Cohen told WND....
Chinese spying a 'substantial' concern: FBI chief China's espionage operations are of "substantial concern," and the United States is taking new steps to address the threat, FBI Director Robert Mueller said Thursday. Mueller was asked about Beijing's spying programs in the United States during a hearing of the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, but said he could give few details in an unclassified setting. "I can say that it is a substantial concern," Mueller said. "China is stealing our secrets in an effort to leap ahead in terms of its military technology but also the economic capability of China. "It is a substantial threat that we are addressing in the sense of putting -- building our program to address this threat."....
House votes for plan to free Ramos, Compean The House of Representatives has attached two amendments to spending bills intended to free Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean from prison and prohibit the Department of Transportation from spending any funds on the development of NAFTA Superhighways. Representative Ted Poe, R-Texas, sponsored an amendment that was co-sponsored by Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., and Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., aimed at prohibiting the federal government from spending any federal funds to keep Ramos and Compean imprisoned. The amendment, which passed the House by an overwhelming bipartisan voice vote, is designed to be a "get-out-of-jail now" maneuver forcing the Bureau of Prisons to release the two agents. "This amendment represents a novel concept," Poe told WND. "But the House had a lively, emotional, and intense debate on the floor and the more the debate proceeded the more I'm convinced we are winning a lot of people over."....
The Pardon Pander The House of Representatives is perched to equal or better the instruction of President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard Cheney in sneering at the Constitution's separation of powers. In an amendment to the pending defense appropriations bill that passed last night on a voice vote, the House usurped the president's pardon authority by commuting the sentences of the two former Border Patrol agents convicted in 2005 of federal firearms violations and obstructing justice in connection with shooting an illegal-alien smuggler. Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean were sentenced to 11 and 12 years, respectively. Their case has become a cause célèbre on the right. And now, Congress has responded to the outcry by subordinating the Constitution in defiance of the congressional oath of office. The amendment that passed last night, sponsored by Reps. Ted Poe, R-Texas, and Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., provides: "None of the funds made available under this Act shall be used by the Bureau of Prisons to incarcerate Ignacio Ramos or Jose Alonso Compean." But the Constitution entrusts the power to pardon offenses against the United States or to commute sentences exclusively to the president. The enumerated legislative powers do not hint at a concurrent authority in Congress. Pardons or commutations, moreover, have invariably been associated with law enforcement as opposed to law-making. In the 1872 case United States v. Klein, the Supreme Court held unconstitutional an attempt by Congress to subtract from the legal effect of a pardon. Contrary to a common assumption, the power of the purse does not give this amendment any greater claim to constitutionality....
Legal Brief Says Border Agents Were Charged With 'Non-Existent Crime' Two Border Patrol agents whose prosecution and sentences to lengthy prison terms triggered a political storm this year may have been charged with a "non-existent crime," according to a legal brief submitted to a federal appeals court in May, and obtained by Cybercast News Service. Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean are serving 11- and 12-year sentences respectively for shooting and wounding a Mexican national who was trying to escape after attempting to smuggle 743 pounds of marijuana across the Mexico-Texas border in February 2005. Although they were convicted on 11 counts, the crime carrying the lengthiest penalty was for the "discharge of a firearm in relation to a crime of violence," a violation of section 924(c)(1)(a) of the U.S. Code. It carries a minimum 10-year prison sentence. Cybercast News Service obtained a copy of an amicus curiae ("friend of the court") legal brief filed by Reps. Walter Jones (R-N.C.), Virgil Goode (R-Va.), and Ted Poe (R-Texas) in the former agents' appeal before the Fifth Circuit Court in New Orleans. They accuse the prosecution of "creating a purported criminal offense never enacted into law by Congress," and of charging Ramos and Compean with a "non-existent crime." Simply discharging a firearm near a violent crime is not illegal, the brief argued, saying the law they were convicted under is not a law at all, but a sentencing factor used to help a jury determine jail time after a conviction....
Senators agree to additional $3 billion in border security funds Senate Democrats and Republicans agreed Thursday to add $3 billion in technology and resources to the fiscal 2008 Homeland Security spending bill for border security and to crack down on illegal immigrants. The extra $3 billion would cover completion of 700 miles of border fencing and 300 miles of vehicle barriers. It also would pay for an additional 23,000 Border Patrol officers and increase the number of beds available to detain illegal immigrants to 45,000. It would also pay for 105 ground-based radars and surveillance towers along the border, along with four new unmanned aerial vehicles to patrol the U.S.-Mexico border. Under the agreement reached with Cornyn, the funds can also be used to detain and remove foreigners who have overstayed their visas, criminal aliens and aliens who have illegally re-entered the United States after being deported. It can also reimburse state and local governments for costs associated with border security. Cornyn said 45 percent of all illegal immigrants in the country are foreigners who came in legally and overstayed....
Judge Blocks City's Ordinances Against Illegal Immigration A federal judge issued a permanent injunction yesterday against restrictive anti-illegal-immigration ordinances in Hazleton, Pa., a city described by its mayor as "the toughest place on illegal immigrants in America." In a strongly worded opinion handed down at the U.S. District Court in Scranton, Pa., Judge James M. Munley ruled that federal law "prohibits Hazleton from enforcing any of the provisions of its ordinances," which impose a $1,000-per-day fine on landlords who rent to illegal immigrants, revoke the business license of any employer who hires them, declare English as the official language and bar city employees from translating documents to another language without approval. Civil liberties organizations sued on behalf of illegal and legal immigrant plaintiffs, including the Hazleton Hispanic Business Association, saying that the city infringed on the federal government's sole authority to regulate immigration. But the opponents vowed to appeal the decision and to continue the fight to the Supreme Court, if necessary. "Attorneys have already drafted appeal briefs," said Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform. Seeking to severely restrict immigration, the group strongly supported Hazleton's ordinances. In a statement, Hazleton Mayor Louis J. Barletta said: "This fight is far from over. I have said it many times before: Hazleton is not going to back down. We are discouraged to see a federal judge has decided -- wrongly, we believe -- that Hazleton and cities like it around the nation cannot enact legislation to protect their citizens, their services, and their budgets."....
FBI ordered to pay $101.7m in false murder convictions A federal judge held the FBI "responsible for the framing of four innocent men" in a 1965 gangland murder in a landmark ruling yesterday and ordered the government to pay the men $101.7 million for the decades they spent in prison. The award is believed to be the largest of its kind nationally. In a decision that was as dramatic as it was stern, US District Judge Nancy Gertner said from the bench that the FBI had deliberately withheld evidence that Peter J. Limone, Joseph Salvati, Louis Greco, and Henry Tameleo were innocent, and that the bureau helped cover up the injustice for decades as the men grew old behind bars and Tameleo and Greco died. "FBI officials up the line allowed their employees to break laws, violate rules, and ruin lives, interrupted only with the occasional burst of applause," said Gertner, berating the FBI for giving commendations and bonuses to the agents who helped send the men to prison for the killing in Chelsea of Edward "Teddy" Deegan, a small-time hoodlum. "Sadly when law enforcement perverts its mission, the criminal justice system does not easily self-correct," Gertner said. "We understand that our system makes mistakes; we have appeals to address them. But this case goes beyond mistakes, beyond unavoidable errors of a fallible system." She added, "This case is about intentional misconduct, subornation of perjury, conspiracy, the framing of innocent men." Later in the day, Gertner released a 223-page decision detailing her findings. She found that the government, which was sued under the Federal Tort Claims Act, was liable for the malicious prosecution of the four men, civil conspiracy, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and negligence....