Colo. "Samaritans" accused of transporting immigra

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_2850843

Article Launched: 07/11/2005 01:29:29 AM

briefs
Colo. "Samaritans" accused of transporting immigrants

Tucson - Two Colorado members of a border humanitarian group were arrested by the U.S. Border Patrol after an agent found three illegal immigrants in their vehicle.

The two No More Deaths volunteers, both students at Colorado College, were arrested at about noon Saturday, said Gustavo Soto, a spokesman for the Border Patrol's Tucson Sector. They were being held on charges of transporting illegal immigrants.

Soto said an agent pulled over a car marked as "Samaritan patrol" and found three illegal immigrants with students Daniel Strauss and Shanti Sellz, both 23.

Bill Walker, the volunteers' attorney, said they came across nine illegal immigrants in need of medical assistance and were able to treat six of them, but the other three needed more help.

One man was suffering from diarrhea and another had been vomiting for three days, Walker said.

"Our medical team called a registered nurse about the men's conditions and she verified that they needed to be seen by a doctor," Walker said. He said the volunteers were taking the men to Southside Presbyterian Church, where a doctor was to meet them.

Soto said a Border Patrol medical team examined the immigrants and found that they were OK.

"This is unbelievable," Walker said. "They are discouraging people from saving lives and helping others."

Border Patrol officials have said it is legal to give aid to immigrants who are distressed, but transporting them is illegal.

Quote:

---

"This is unbelievable," Walker said. "They are discouraging people from saving lives and helping others."

---

If you are going to help criminals, you had better know the rules of the game. Or better yet, stay home where you belong if you are going to ignore the law.

This is so funny and at the same thing is so great!

Pro

8) Was Mr. Walker this upset when the Denver Police Officer was killed by an illegal alien?

Walker, if you were a Good Samaritan you would have driven them home to a hospital near them in Mexico.

Instead, you chose the "easy" way, the "illegal" way, by aiding and abetting illegal foreign nationals you know nothing about. You're lucky they didn't have enough energy to slit your throat and steal your car.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE? ARE THEY NUTS?

Let me ask a question: How many of these "do-gooders" go into Watts or Harlem and offer rides to a better life?

This is an example of hypocrisy at its highest idiot-level.

Can we pass a law that says when we find an idiot aiding and abetting this illegal traffic that we deport them too?

:)

Here's what the Rocky Mtn New's said:

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/s ... 79,00.html

Two driving illegal immigrants arrested
By Tillie Fong, Rocky Mountain News
July 12, 2005

A Colorado College graduate and a Durango resident were arrested in Arizona after the U.S. Border Patrol found three illegal immigrants in their vehicle.

Daniel Strauss, 23, of Jackson Hole, Wyo., and Shanti Sellz, 23, of Durango, were arraigned Monday in federal court in Tucson and released. They were charged with transportation of illegal immigrants and obstruction of justice.

If convicted of the transportation- of-illegal-immigrants charge, they could each face up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Border patrol agents on Saturday arrested Strauss and Sellz, who had three illegal immigrants in their vehicle as they traveled east on Arivaca Road, two miles west of Amado, Ariz. Strauss and Sellz, volunteers with the humanitarian group No More Deaths, told the agents they were taking the people to a doctor.

According to a statement released Monday by Margo Cowlan, an attorney for No More Deaths, volunteers with the group found nine illegal immigrants wandering in the desert.

"Three of these persons reported vomiting (and) diarrhea, and one reported blood in his stool - all conditions which are symptomatic of extreme and life-threatening dehydration," Cowlan said.

Strauss and Sellz volunteered to drive the three to Tucson to be treated by a doctor, but were arrested en route, Cowlan said.

Gustavo Soto, a spokesman for Tucson Sector Border Patrol, said members of Border Search, Trauma and Rescue examined the three immigrants. "They were not in medical distress," Soto said. "All they needed was some water and rest."

Soto said the group could have contacted local authorities or border-patrol agents to tend to the three people's medical needs.

Eric Popkin, associate professor of sociology at Colorado College, worried about his former student Strauss. "He is a person with tremendous personal connections, someone who strongly believes in saving lives and trying to offer a hand to migrants in distress," said Popkin, who teaches a course on globalization and migration on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Popkin disagreed with Soto's advice on getting help for sick illegal immigrants: "Last summer, I encountered a migrant in distress and we called border patrol, but border patrol never came. Border patrol is called, but sometimes they respond and sometimes they do not."

Quote:

---

Eric Popkin, associate professor of sociology at Colorado College, worried about his former student Strauss. "He is a person with tremendous personal connections, someone who strongly believes in saving lives and trying to offer a hand to migrants in distress," said Popkin, who teaches a course on globalization and migration on the U.S.-Mexico border.

---

Legal migrants are not in distress, you stupid twerp.

PINK-SLIP THE PROF..we don't need "courses" on globalization.

He's teaching "globalization and migration on the US Mexico Border" making money spreading Globbie Talk and sends his students down to Arizona to violate US Immigration Law!!

If his student "Strauss" with "tremendous personal connections" really believes in "saving lives" Strauss needs to use his personal connections to save the lives of Americans who are being killed daily all across the country by illegal aliens he's transporting in.

"Strauss" is a Foot Soldier for the Globbies tryin' to END OUR NATION which makes him what folks?

That's right...a Traitor!!

Lock him up; throw away the key; take whatever money he has that gives him those "tremendous personal connections"; feed him GMO mush until he begs for mercy and promises under oath and in front of American Witnessess NEVER TO PULL THAT CRAP AGAIN within the boundaries of the United States!!

:)

Found a few more articles. I have a feeling eventually no charges will be filed on this one.



http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/ ... ase13.html

Judge frees volunteers arrested for taking aliens to medical care


The Associated Press
Jul. 12, 2005 10:12 AM

TUCSON- A federal magistrate has freed two members of a border humanitarian group who were arrested after federal agents found three illegal immigrants in their vehicle. The volunteers said they were carrying the three men to emergency medical care.

U.S. Magistrate Hector Estrada on Monday went against a federal prosecutor's recommendations to hold No More Deaths Coalition volunteers Shanti Sellz and Daniel Strauss. They are to return to court Wednesday for another hearing.

"They showed human compassion to those our government degrades as less than human," said Margo Cowan, a lawyer and spokeswoman for No More Deaths.

Sellz and Strauss, both 23, were arrested by Border Patrol agents Saturday.

The volunteers, who are among group members offering emergency aid to illegal immigrants in the desert this summer, came across a group of nine lost, wandering migrants. Sellz and Strauss gave them food and water and cared for their blisters.

The volunteers also called a nurse and doctor affiliated with No More Deaths about the heat-related symptoms of three men in the group. The nurse who took the call from Strauss, Helen Lundgren, said the volunteers told her the men had been drinking water from cattle tanks to survive in the hot desert. They were vomiting and had diarrhea and needed medical attention, she said.

What the Border Patrol described as transporting illegal immigrants, Cowan and the aid group described as medical evacuation.

"We have an absolute right to provide assistance," Cowan said. "It is our moral obligation."

Volunteers with the No More Deaths Coalition are camping in the desert near the border for a second consecutive summer to offer help. Dozens of illegal immigrants die in Arizona's rugged border region each year, often because of the heat.

Andrea Zortman, a Border Patrol spokeswoman, said agents checked the migrants, and determined they needed only water and a cool place to sit.

"If you feel someone is in dire straits, you need to call 911," she said. "You don't take it into your own hands."

Aid groups had been informed that giving food and water is legal, but "once they cross the line and put them in their vehicle, they're going to get arrested," Zortman said.

Two of three migrants the volunteers had in their marked "Samaritan Patrol" car at the time of the arrests have been returned to Mexico. Another is being held in federal custody as a material witness in the case against the volunteers.



http://www.kold.com/Global/story.asp?S= ... v=14RTc4X9

Arrested Humanitarians Speak Out

by Mark Poepsel, KOLD News-13 Reporter
posted 7/12/2005

Two volunteers with the border humanitarian group "No More Deaths" are speaking out after being arrested in what they call a medical evaucation.

"It's a huge injustice," says Daniel Strauss, a veteran volunteer who has spent the past summer and a half doing humanitarian work in Southern Arizona. "If the U. S. government has a policy of arresting people for saving lives, what kind of country do we live in?"

Strauss faces federal prison if convicted of transporting illegal immigrants and obstructing justice.

Fellow volunteer Shanti Sellz faces the same.

"The thing is, what's considered an emergency? Is it someone on their last breath or someone with severe blisters on their feet where if they stay in the desert another day they will be on their last breath," she says.

Both volunteers are taking the opportunity to make their political views known, although neither is talking about the specifics of the case as advised by their lawyer.

"Every year from the beginning of this border patrol policy has been the worst year yet," says Strauss, referring to a policy of tighter control in Texas and California leading to more illegal immigrants crossing in Arizona.

Andrea Zortman, spokesperson for the United States Border Patrol doesn't deny each year more illegal immigrants are dying in the desert.

"But on another note," she said, "Every year we're also rescuing more individuals than the year before."

She says Strauss and Sellz don't have to transport immigrants themselves.

"Transporting illegal aliens in furtherance away from the border is a crime, period. That's what we caught them doing. That's why they were arrested," Zortman said.

Sellz talked about the threat of becoming a convicted felon.

"The implications are scary, but I believe the outcome will be good for us. We have a lot of support, and we're doing the right thing," she said.

But the Border Patrol says the volunteers have options they have chosen not to use.

"They should've called 9-1-1 instead of taking it into their own hands. [The] 9-1-1 [service]can get there in a matter of seconds."

But Daniel Strauss says that's not what he's seen in the past.

"I have called Border Patrol for migrants dehydrated who wanted to return to Mexico, and it has taken hours for them to show up and take that individual," he says.

Zortman says the Border Patrol supports the rights of humanitarians to give aid, but Strauss and Sellz are finding out there's such a thing as going too far.

"Giving food and water in the desert is humanitarian. We completely understand that, but crossing the line and putting them in a vehicle is illegal," she says.

Strauss and Sellz have a hearing in federal court Wednesday morning.



http://kvoa.com/Global/story.asp?S=3586794&nav=HMO5c4wr


And it may be the heat that killed an illegal immigrant today.

The 27-year old man died near Yuma.

He was travelling with his brother when he collapsed, right after crossing-in from Mexico.

The brother was taken into custody by the border patrol.

Shanti Sellz and Daniel Strauss say they showed compassion to people in need, and if they had to do it over and get arrested for helping people....they would..

Strauss says, "A human life is extremely valuable. I would go thru anything to save a life."

Selz says, "I don't feel any of my actions are illegal so I'm not ever questioning my getting arrested or not i'm just doing the work."

The work....consists of giving food, water and medical attention to illegal immigrants who are crossing the desert.

And to prevent people from dying.

Their atty. Bill Walker wouldn't allow them to answer questions relating to case. He maintains they were not breaking the law. He says the three immigrants were in desperate need of medical attention.

"Congress didn't say it was illegal to transport...congress said it was illegal to transport for illegal purposes not illegal to transport a person that is in dire medical need."

Border Patrol officials say the illegal immigrants were not in dire medical need.

Border agents say they had warned the no more deaths coalition that once they put illegals in their vehicle they were breaking federal law and would be arrested.

Two of the illegal border crossers have already been sent back. One remains to testify against the two volunteers.

Give the migrants some water and drive them home to Mexico just like the Legal Process in America would do.

Veeeery simple.

Problem Solved.

EVERY TRAFFICKER could say, "They are thirty and I'm driving them to the hospital."

Right!?

:roll: :roll: :roll: :roll:

Transporting immigrants? I'm so sick of this revisionism crap. Why can't the media call a spade a spade? They are illegal aliens. Not immigrants. The media makes it sound like it was a crime to round up the criminals in the first place. :evil: :evil: :evil:

http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/border/83919.php

Published: 07.13.2005

2 immigrant aid workers say fellow detainees lived in filth
By Stephanie Innes
ARIZONA DAILY STAR

The experience of being arrested and held in what they say were inhumane conditions while in federal custody has strengthened the resolve of two local immigrant aid workers, who spoke publicly for the first time Tuesday.

Daniel Strauss and Shanti Sellz, both 23, were released from custody Monday, two days after they were arrested by the U.S. Border Patrol when an agent stopped their vehicle and found three illegal entrants inside. The pair said they were taking the entrants to receive medical care. Both face federal charges for transporting illegal entrants.

"Groups like ours absolutely have to stay out there and stay strong," Sellz said in an interview Tuesday evening. "The U.S. Border Patrol is not humanitarian. It does not have a humanitarian agenda, policy or protocol. This experience has absolutely validated our commitment to what we're doing."

The U.S. Border Patrol says the pair should not have transported illegal entrants and denies volunteers' accusations of mistreatment in their facilities.

The two volunteers, in their second summer of working with the Tucson-based No More Deaths movement, were scheduled to appear in federal court at 10:30 a.m. today.

Immediately after their arrest, Sellz said, the pair spent hours in a processing station hungry and cold. While she was at the Border Patrol's detention facility at 1970 W. Ajo Way, Sellz said people were sharing filthy blankets in cold cells, and she could not get a toothbrush or toothpaste. She said detainees who had been walking for days in the hot desert were crammed into small facilities without the opportunity to shower.

"This is just going to strengthen everyone's resolve. The Border Patrol is not in the business of saving lives," said Strauss, who says he was in a cell with no toilet paper and that some of the detainees were using blankets as a substitute.

Sellz and Strauss are part of an immigrant aid group that gives food, water and medical assistance to people who illegally cross the border on foot from Mexico to the United States. The group says their work is necessary at a time when illegal entrants continue to perish in the desert while making the trek.

The pair are being represented by Tucson attorneys Jeff Rogers and William Walker, who say their clients did nothing illegal in seeking medical treatment for the three migrants, whom they described as suffering from serious, heat-related illness. The Border Patrol has described the ailments as relatively minor.

Gustavo Soto, a spokesman for the U.S. Border Patrol's Tucson Sector, said detainees are treated humanely and regularly given food, water and other amenities. He said Strauss and Sellz were offered food and did not take it.

"We made every effort to make sure, as with other detainees, that they received the necessary amenities," Soto said. "We believe they are entitled to necessary services. There are showers."

The Border Patrol's detention facility at 1970 W. Ajo Way has no showers.

No showers? No toilet paper? No toothbrushes?

Did they take a shower in the desert?

Did they use up all their toilet paper in the desert?

Did they have a toothbrush in the desert?

GET THIS--this is no joy ride. This isn't the Motel 6. This isn't the Ritz.

This is the United States trying to enforce its laws. You want a shower? Stay in Mexico. You want toilet paper? Stay in Mexico. You want a toothbrush? Stay in Mexico.

You want a better life than being crammed in with a bunch of dirty people with no toilet paper or toothbrush?

Stay in Mexico.

You are not welcome in the United States.

:)

Updated article.

www.azcentral.com

2 feel law backward on aiding migrants


Jul. 18, 2005 12:00 AM

Daniel Strauss and Shanti Sellz were a half-hour away from their preliminary hearing on federal smuggling charges, when their attorneys told them the government was dangling a deal. If the pair admitted guilt and agreed to behave themselves, prosecutors would drop the case. It was a sweet deal, save for one detail: the 23-year-olds don't think they did anything wrong by giving three severely dehydrated border crossers a ride to a doctor.

"I will in no way admit guilt. I do not, in no way, think what we're doing is wrong," Sellz said, standing outside the Evo A. DeConcini Courthouse in Tucson. It was immediately following the hearing, and after forcefully stating her defiance, she started looking around for her attorney. "I don't know whether I was supposed to say that."

Strauss and Sellz plan to announce their decision today in Tucson, their lawyers said. Accepting the deal means avoiding federal felony charges of transporting undocumented immigrants and obstructing justice, convictions that can come with five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Fighting means finding out whether the actions they deem right in their hearts are right under the law.

Sellz and Strauss work with No More Deaths, a Tucson-based organization that asks volunteers to spend the summer camped out in the infernal Sonoran Desert. They hike along popular illegal immigration routes looking for people in distress. They give out water and food. Sometimes they'll tend to blistered feet. Anyone in medical need gets driven to a hospital or the Southside Presbyterian Church in Tucson, where they are tended to by a doctor friendly to the cause.

It's sort of like an answer to the Minutemen, the armed group that also hunts for migrants in the desert. Both groups believe the government's border policy has failed and that private citizens must take action. Except instead of guns, the No More Deaths volunteers carry water bottles and cans of tuna. And while the Minutemen patrolled Arizona's desert for a month in the spring, No More Deaths is camped out throughout the summer.

At around noon on July 9, a group of migrants stumbled into the group's camp. Six only needed water and food. But three of them had drunk water from a cattle tank and were nauseated, said Helen Lundgren, a nurse who works with No More Deaths. One was vomiting and couldn't hold down water, Lundgren said. She and two doctors were called by the volunteers who described the men's symptoms to them.

Strauss and Sellz put the three men in their car, which had a magnetic No More Deaths sign on the door, and drove north toward Tucson. Twenty miles away from the city, they were pulled over by a Border Patrol agent. He determined the three border crossers, who by now had received water, food and air-conditioning, didn't need emergency care. And the two do-gooders seemed more like amateur smugglers.

The agent arrested everyone and took the group to the Tucson station for processing.

Strauss grew up in New York City. His interest in border issues was piqued by a class at Colorado College, a private liberal-arts college in Colorado Springs, Colo. The class, Globalization and Immigration on the U.S. Mexican Border, included a 10-day trip to Tucson, where students met with Border Patrol agents and migrants waiting to cross. They also surveyed popular crossing routes.

"We were so moved by the situation and just so shocked and outraged at what was going on," Strauss said. Eight members of the class volunteered at No More Deaths last summer. Strauss returned this year.

Sellz was born in Iowa and spent a lot of time studying and living in Latin America. She thought taking a nanny job in the border town of Bisbee would give her that cross-cultural vibe she craved. When she arrived in January 2004, she didn't expect to see migrants dashing through town clutching water bottles, or arroyos filled with trash. "I started putting the pieces together," she said, and started volunteering for organizations that aided the crossers.

Last summer, that meant sitting in a No More Deaths camp. "You don't even comprehend it until you're here," she said of the summertime conditions out in the desert. Her most vivid memory from that first summer was coming across a mother and father and their 3-year-old girl.

"Her parents were giving her all the food and water they had, but she was in real bad shape," Sellz said. "She was barely conscious, laying on her father's shoulder.

"Those images," Sellz said. "To me, they're images of a war."

The Border Patrol, in response to the growing number of deaths in the Arizona desert, has run humanitarian patrols for the past several years. They've rescued thousands and say anyone coming across a migrant in distress should call them. The federal law against transporting an "alien within the United States . . . in furtherance of such violation of law" makes no mention of medical emergencies.

But Strauss feels it should be illegal to not help someone in need of water. "I'm now more sure than ever that this cause is a just cause," he said, "and until no more migrants are innocently dying in the desert, then the work needs to continue."

His feelings were bolstered by what he felt was inhumane treatment while he was in Border Patrol custody. At the initial processing center, the two said they were not offered anything to eat other than cheese crackers for at least six hours. After being moved to a holding facility, they said they shivered under dirty blankets in tiny, cold cells. "This is the place where our border patrol brings people?" Strauss said. "What kind of treatment is this for people? That's insane." Sellz said women she was with had been held for days, with no shower and no hygiene products. "Women were scrubbing their teeth with toilet paper," Sellz said.

Gustavo Soto, a spokesman for the Tucson sector of the Border Patrol, said records indicated Strauss and Sellz refused food at the processing center. Of their complaints about general conditions, he said, "It's jail."

Two days after their arrest, the two had their initial appearance in federal court. Their names stuck out on a docket alongside names like Garcia-Miranda and Sandoval-Hernandez. At that first hearing, government attorneys argued the two should be held in jail and laid out some of the details of the case. The magistrate decided the pair could be released until their preliminary hearing.

Strauss was led out of court and into a holding cell with his fellow male prisoners. He knew he was probably the only one in the group of 30 who would be released that day. "In a way I felt bad because they didn't have the same legal support I had," he said.

He was pulled out of line and a guard took the shackles off him. As he was freed, the other men broke into a round of applause. "You know, pats on the back and 'way to go' " Strauss said, his lips quivering and voice cracking as he recalled the story. "That kind of support was just amazing."

The two both say they want to be back out in the desert, looking for migrants to save. Even if they take a plea deal that includes a promise not to re-offend. They didn't expect the threat of prison when they signed on with No More Deaths, but their bigger fear is that the government could be halting the work of rescue groups in the brutal desert.

"If we were to be convicted of this and they were to shut down humanitarian efforts, such as this one, the only outcome would be that more people would die," Strauss said. "Is that what is trying to be accomplished by this?"

if the car flips over and the 3 die and the driver is a COYOTE than the government throws the book at the coyote........here we have essentially the same thing and they get off..the do gooders.......this is how public opinion has to change....

I say throw the book at them for their arrogance!

www.azstarnet.com

No More Deaths activists to reject plea deal
Two seek trial in border-crosser transport case
By Michael Marizco
ARIZONA DAILY STAR

Saying that saving lives is nothing to feel guilty about, the two border activists facing smuggling-based charges said they will defend their actions in trial and take on the United States.

With their attorneys sitting next to them, No More Deaths volunteers Shanti Sellz and Daniel Strauss, both 23, said they would reject a plea offer from the U.S. Attorney's Office to drop the felony transporting charge and go to trial instead. A preliminary hearing in U.S. District Court is scheduled for this afternoon.

"Shanti and I are not accepting this plea," Strauss said.

Sellz's lawyer, William Walker, said the two rejected the offer because they would be able to successfully show in court that immigration law does not say transporting a border crosser is illegal, only that helping further an illegal entry is illegal. They were unable to provide specific cases they would cite as precedent when asked Thursday.

Sellz and Strauss were arrested on July 9 with three illegal entrants in their truck. They were driving them to Southside Presbyterian Church and said the men were vomiting and had bloody diarrhea.

In the criminal complaint against them, a Border Patrol agent stated the three illegal entrants were taken to the No More Deaths camp near Arivaca then offered a ride to a church or hospital in Tucson. The agent said they passed two Border Patrol vehicles before they were pulled over.

Details of the actual plea offer are still unknown. The U.S. Attorney's Office will make statements only in court, said spokeswoman Sandy Raynor. No More Deaths spokesman Luke Roske said the organization did not have a copy of the plea offer, and he had not seen it.

Since the arrests, both sides have accused the other of giving wrong information. That, coupled with what's sure to be a high-profile trial, promises to make this case a rancorous debate on illegal immigration, experts say.

On Thursday, Walker said that on at least 50 occasions in the past four years, the Border Patrol knew illegal entrants had been brought to the Southside church for medical help and allowed that to happen.

Jose Garza, Border Patrol Tucson Sector spokesman, said that was not true. Last week, the Tucson Sector said the three illegal entrants being transported were not ill and refused medical aid once in custody.

In a signed affidavit, the only illegal entrant held as a material witness, Emil Hidalgo Solis, said he was vomiting, had blood in his diarrhea and couldn't go on. He wrote that an agent told him he was fine. The affidavit was signed by Margo Cowan, an activist with No More Deaths.

Prosecution, if it comes, may be part of an effort to teach other would-be helpers a lesson, said Mike Albon, spokesman for the Border Patrol union Local 2544.

The Border Patrol often arrests people for smuggling small groups, but most arrests in low-end cases are not worth the expense of prosecuting, he said.

"I think people are picked up all the time along (Arizona) 286. Sometimes ranchers feel sorry for them," Albon said. Those cases usually aren't worth the bother, he said. "But they probably don't want a bunch of people out in the desert picking people up," he added.

A trial will offer a chance for the United States to set ground rules for what can and can't be done in helping illegal entrants, said Jean Rosenbluth, a law professor at the University of Southern California and a federal prosecutor until 2002.

"They may be intending to use the opportunity to tell private citizens, 'You don't get to decide when to help an illegal alien,' " Rosenbluth said.




www.latimes.com

Samaritans Say They Haven't Crossed a Line at the Border
Two volunteers drove migrants to a hospital -- and then found themselves behind bars.
By Richard Marosi
Times Staff Writer

July 22, 2005

ARIVACA, Ariz. â€â€