( CNN ) -- Jose Compean and Ignacio Ramos began their `` supervised release '' Friday after President Bush commuted their sentences in January for convictions related to the shooting of a Mexican drug smuggler . Ignacio Ramos has been out of prison since Febrary after serving time in the shooting of an illegal immigrant . Ramos and Compean were able to remove their electronic monitoring devices and leave their homes in El Paso , Texas , on Friday for the first time since they left prison in February . After spending two `` hard , long , lonely '' years in prison , the two said they were looking forward to spending time with their families and putting this chapter of their lives behind them . `` There are more important things than the people that have done this to us or what we have gone through and I am not going to sit here and dwell on that , '' Ramos said in an interview with CNN 's `` Lou Dobbs Tonight . '' `` We are looking ahead . We 're optimistic for a very good future and that 's what 's more important , '' Ramos said . Their release in February marked a significant turning point in a case that served as a flash point in the debate over immigration and border security . The two were sentenced in 2006 to 11- and 12-year sentences stemming from the February 2005 shooting of Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila near the U.S.-Mexico border south of El Paso , Texas . Critics of U.S. immigration policy rushed to the agents ' defense , saying they were merely doing their jobs . Civil liberties advocates argued that Compean and Ramos used excessive force . Ramos credited the outside support with helping him win clemency and keeping his spirits up during his imprisonment . `` Members from Congress were speaking about us , people writing us constantly , it felt so good to know that people did n't give up on us and that people constantly believed in us , '' he said . `` How can you give up when people are n't giving up on you ? '' Compean echoed his sentiments , saying he was shocked to this day over the support he received . `` I did n't expect it . I expected people to really forget all about us once we turned ourselves in , '' he said . Like Ramos , Compean said the most difficult part of going to prison was leaving behind his wife and children . `` I think that 's been the hardest . When I turned myself in , my son was 4 months old , '' he said . `` There 's really nothing special I want to do . The only thing I 'm really looking forward to is getting out of the house and going out to dinner with my wife and going to the park with my sons , '' Compean said . Their legal cases are far from over . The convictions still stand and the two remain felons while appeals are pending , which means they can not contact one another or reapply for their jobs , something Ramos said he would like to do . Ramos shot Aldrete-Davila in the buttocks after he ditched a vehicle carrying more than 700 pounds of marijuana and fled on foot toward Mexico . The agents said during trial that Aldrete-Davila had brandished a gun while resisting arrest , but Aldrete-Davila said he was unarmed and trying to surrender when Compean attempted to beat him with a shotgun . `` In exchange for immunity , Aldrete-Davila agreed to cooperate with the investigation of the shooting , and he returned to the United States so that the bullet could be removed from his body , '' according to court documents . Ramos and Compean were convicted of assault with a dangerous weapon , lying about the incident and violating Aldrete-Davila 's Fourth Amendment right against illegal search and seizure . Sen. John Cornyn , R-Texas , a vocal critic of the decision to grant Aldrete-Davila immunity , said several key pieces of evidence were withheld from the jury that convicted Ramos and Compean . The jury , for instance , never learned that Aldrete-Davila was running drugs at the time of the shooting . Nor did jurors learn that Aldrete-Davila breached his immunity agreement by continuing to smuggle drugs into the United States , Cornyn has said . `` Several jurors have since come forward to state that if they had been told about the excluded evidence , they would have changed their verdict , '' Cornyn wrote in a January plea to Bush , requesting clemency for the agents . Despite Ramos ' and Compean 's appeals for clemency , a senior Bush administration official said the men were `` convicted felons who violated their oaths to uphold the law . '' Leading Democrats and Republicans , however , supported Bush 's commutation , the official said . `` The president has reviewed the circumstances of this case as a whole and the conditions of confinement and believes the sentences they received are too harsh and that they and their families have suffered enough for their crimes , '' the official said .
Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean begin their supervised release Friday . Men say they look forward to being with family , putting incident behind them . ` ` There are more important things than the people that have done this , '' Ramos says . TL;DR A Mexican man who was convicted of killing a U.S. Border Patrol agent in 2011 has been released from prison after serving nearly four years for his role in an armed robbery at a gas station