No More Deaths activist trial ends in hung jury

I can't believe they prosecuted him in the first place.  America should hang its head in shame.

A Tucson jury on Tuesday was unable to convict a man for giving food and temporary shelter to a pair of Central American migrants who snuck into the country last year.

Unfortunately, the jury also was unable to declare that he’s in the clear.

And so we wait to see if the U.S. Justice Department will try, try again to lock up a 36-year-old geography teacher from Ajo.

Scott Warren’s trial, in U.S. District Court in Tucson, has captured nationwide attention, as it should – when offering humanitarian aid is a crime punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

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Warren [is] a former ASU instructor who volunteers his time putting out water jugs and food for migrants in the unforgiving southern Arizona desert.

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“In the time since I was arrested in January 2018, no fewer than 88 bodies were recovered from the Arizona desert,” he told reporters. “The government’s plan in the midst of this humanitarian crisis? Policies to target undocumented people, refugees and their families. Prosecutions to criminalize humanitarian aid, kindness and solidarity.” Before Donald Trump became president, federal prosecutors generally turned a blind eye to humanitarian groups that refused to stand by while people died in the desert. Instead, prosecutors went after smugglers and those who turned a profit from illegal immigration.

That all changed in 2017, when then-Attorney Genereal Jeff Sessions declared it a priority to go after anyone harboring undocumented immigrants.

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[T]he Border Patrol arrested Warren on the day they were staking out the No More Deaths staging area. His arrest came just hours after No More Deaths released a video showing Border Patrol agents destroying water jugs in the desert.

The jury debated for two days and was unable to determine whether Scott Warren crossed the line by providing two men with food, water and shelter.

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“Do I think it is wrong to arrest a person who is helping criminals avoid prosecution for violating our laws? Absolutely not,” wrote William of Goodyear. “It amazes me that you Liberals would rather see America destroyed than to admit you lost an election.”

What a world. When a geography teacher offering food, water and temporary shelter to a couple of migrants is the first step in the path to the destruction of America.

  AZ Central

The New American Century is devoid of humanity

From fiscal years 2015 to 2018, the number of people federally charged with smuggling and harboring jumped almost a third, from 3,441 to 4,532. Most of the increase occurred in fiscal year 2018. That’s the year after the Trump administration told prosecutors to focus on the “harboring” statute and to charge people alleged to have violated it with as few as three undocumented immigrants per incident. (Earlier, the minimum was five immigrants.)

A few months after the directive was issued, in summer 2017, Arizona activists working to save lives in the desert by giving or leaving migrants food and water, were arrested and later convicted of felonies and misdemeanors. A Texas driver during the same period was arrested and threatened with prosecution for smuggling and harboring after she gave two migrants a ride. And now Teresa Todd is under threat of indictment after she tried to help a desperately ill girl and her brothers. In each of these cases, it seems as if law enforcement is intent on chilling a basic human impulse: to help people in need.

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In South Texas in 2017, similar punitive enforcement was aimed at a young woman who lives near the border. One afternoon, she went to a gas station to fill her tank for a trip to buy diapers for her baby at a Sam’s Club a few hours away. A man and a teenage boy approached her and asked if she would give them a ride. She said yes.

The woman, who requested anonymity, volunteers with local charities. She has a reputation for altruism, and used to regularly give an elderly neighbor rides to the grocery store.

But after she left the gas station, she was stopped by a Texas state trooper, ostensibly for failing to signal a lane change. The passengers turned out to be undocumented Guatemalans, and the agent called Border Patrol. He rebuked the woman with comments such as, “You’re telling me that two men you’ve never met in your life just approached you … and you let them hop in the vehicle with you?” She was arrested.

She was not charged but was held for six hours before being freed. “I will never give anyone a ride again,” she told this reporter. “Not even my neighbor. I don’t know if she’s undocumented or not.”

Some Samaritans lately have met harsher fates. In Arizona, Scott Warren, a college professor, was charged in January 2018 with felony harboring after he gave food, water, and shelter to an undocumented migrant who was crossing through the desert. From late 1998 to 2017, some 7,000 people died while trying to traverse the border, and Warren was working with No More Deaths/No Más Muertes, an Arizona group that tries to keep more people from perishing.

Also in January, four other No More Deaths/No Más Muertes members were convicted of misdemeanors, after they drove into a national wildlife refuge and left food and water there.

  The Appeal

If ever there were a law that needed to be changed, it's the one that punishes people for helping other people and saving lives.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

By all means, punish the life savers

Make America Germany Again

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.