Jose (left) and Ignacio surrendering in El Paso last year.(AP)

Free at Last!

January 19, 2009: Looks like Santa Claus came to Monica Ramos after all – if three weeks late. Just hours ago – in his last act of clemency before leaving office tomorrow – George W. Bush commuted the sentences of Monica’s husband, Ignacio Ramos, and Jose Compean, the former Border Patrol agents jailed last January for the nonfatal shooting of a now-convicted Mexican drug smuggler. That means Ignacio and Jose, who are currently at the Federal Correction Institution in Phoenix, Ariz. – and who have been serving sentences of more that a decade each – get to leave the big house on March 20, albeit under supervised release.

Still, Monica can rest a bit easier now, knowing that her hubby is just eight weeks away from returning to their El Paso, Tex., abode. Last week on No Compromises Radio, Monica recounted how, when she returned to El Paso on Jan. 3 after a holiday visit with Ignacio, the house had been vandalized – and worse.

“It’s not been a happy New Year, that’s for sure. [We] got home to find out my house had been broken into… A VCR is missing, they stole about 50 of my children’s movies, they stole a BB gun and cell phone…a lot of vandalism,” she said. “But what was really hard was, that when we got here, the gas was turned on. So it was very intentional that someone was trying to hurt us. My son was the first one to arrive. He opened the door to find that the gas was on.”