U.S. Reps. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) and Ed Royce (R-Fullerton) joined a number of their congressional colleagues Friday in sending a letter to Ronald Rogers, President George W. Bush's pardon attorney, requesting pardons for ex-border patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean.

Ramos and Compean were convicted of illegally shooting an unarmed drug dealer as he fled near the U.S.-Mexico border in El Paso, Texas, in 2005. Compean's sister, Claudia Martinez, lives in Rohrabacher's district.

“Ramos and Compean have been living in the torture of solitary confinement for almost two years for something they never should have been prosecuted for in the first place,” Rohrabacher said Friday at a press conference in Washington, D.C. “We are pleading with the Pardon Attorney to make a favorable recommendation of commutation to the President so he can finally do the right thing by these men and their families.

The victim of the shooting, Osvaldo Aldrete Dávila, had been found with nearly 800 pounds of marijuana in the back of his van. He was granted a temporary visa in exchange for testifying in court. Ramos and Compean received prison sentences of 11 and 12 years, respectively.

“It is incomprehensible to me," Royce added, "that an illegal alien drug smuggler was allowed to violate his immunity agreement, be granted a series of unlimited visas to roam free and continue his drug smuggling in our country while two border patrol agents were given excessive prison sentences."