Hundreds of other defendants convicted of garden-variety crimes have petitioned for leniency, seeking to shorten prison sentences their advocates see as excessive. But in the end, Mr. Bush used his clemency power to aid only Mr. Ramos and Mr. Compean. He leaves office having granted 200 pardons and commutations, the fewest of any two-term president in modern times.

“I was shocked when I heard this was the only one,” said Margaret Colgate Love, a former Justice Department pardon lawyer who represents about 20 imprisoned clients who were seeking clemency. “There are a lot of disappointed lawyers in this town today.”

In the month between Thanksgiving and Christmas, Mr. Bush issued 33 clemency orders, an unusually fast clip for him. But he withdrew one pardon in December, for Isaac Toussie, a Brooklyn developer, after it was disclosed that Mr. Toussie was at the center of a Long Island real estate fraud case and that his family had given substantial donations to Republicans.

“The whole Toussie thing may very well have shot down any thoughts that Bush had of granting many routine pardons,” said P. S. Ruckman Jr., a political scientist who has studied presidential pardons.

In the case of the Border Patrol agents, Mr. Bush granted clemency without a formal recommendation from the Justice Department, which had not yet completed its review, officials said. It was the latest in a string of clemency decisions in which the White House did not rely on the formal process at the Justice Department for weighing the merits of clemency petitions.

Mr. Bush, who rarely speaks out on pardon issues, had voiced personal interest in the case two years ago, telling a television station in Texas that he planned to review all the facts to see if a pardon was warranted.

“I just want people to take a sober look at the case,” Mr. Bush said at the time. He noted that the case had generated “a lot of emotions” and added that “Border Patrol and law enforcement have no stronger supporter than me.”