American-Latino Immigrants Proudly Assisting the Community

Law enforcement defends its honor, despite the “hero” propaganda

By Andrew C. McCarthy

“Texans aren’t whiners,” Johnny Sutton told me. Still, forgive him if he sounds a bit frustrated.

Sutton is the top federal law-enforcement officer in one of the nation’s most notorious border badlands. Day in and day out, while no one was paying much attention to the dusty Rio Grande towns outside El Paso, he has been the U.S. Border Patrol’s staunchest ally.

A solid law-and-order conservative, Sutton’s position, United States Attorney for the Western District of Texas, is a unique perch from which to appreciate hundreds of dedicated Border Patrol agents, to grasp in a real way — not a bandwagon way, but a rubber-meets-the-road way — that these men and women truly are our last line of defense against the hordes for whom our political elites are determined to put out a big, fat welcome-mat reading “AMNESTY.”

He has thus vigorously supported them. Sutton’s office prosecutes their cases against alien smugglers and narcotics importers at an impressive clip. It is not for nothing, moreover, that badlands are called “badlands.” Illegals and their facilitators routinely assault the agents. Frequently, there is gunfire. Sutton knows the outnumbered agents have to be able to defend themselves and impose what passes for order. Since he’s been U.S. attorney, there have been several incidents in which agents have shot at hostiles, including four resulting in fatalities. In each, Sutton’s office investigated the matter thoroughly and the agents were cleared without charges being filed.

So why are some Border Patrol agents vilifying Sutton today? Why are they joined by a full-throated chorus of union reps, anti-immigration activists, media heavyweights, and a small but vocal cabal of mostly Republican congressmen? Because two rogues who had no business wearing badges and carrying guns have managed to entangle their gross malfeasance in the impassioned politics of immigration, that’s why.

The sordid details that should condemn these corrupt agents — agents who make the jobs of honest law-enforcement officers galactically harder both in the field and in the courtroom — have been obscured by layers of hyperbole. Hyperbole by which they’ve ludicrously been portrayed as “heroes.” Truth be damned, they have somehow managed to make themselves the rallying cry for Americans enraged by their government’s conscious avoidance — indeed, its active facilitation — of exploding illegal immigration and all its consequent social maladies.

Most ironic of all, this farce owes to the outrage that most offends us: Mexican drug pushers who enter illegally to peddle their poison north of the border. The kind of low-lifes Sutton prosecutes in droves, working shoulder-to-shoulder with the Border Patrol.

One such dope-smuggler, Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila, is at the center of the storm around the two mythologized agents. The propaganda version holds that Aldrete-Davila got off scot-free, while our brave “heroes,” agents Jose Alonso Compean and Ignacio Ramos, are serving heavy-duty jail-time for just doing their jobs.

That's just not the truth.

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