Thread: No More Deaths pair fail to get case dropped

http://www.decaturdailydemocrat.com

Friday, January 13, 2006
No More Deaths pair fail to get case dropped

A.J. FLICK
ajflick@tucsoncitizen.com


A federal magistrate has declined to dismiss human-smuggling charges against two volunteers of a humanitarian group.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Bernardo P. Velasco yesterday denied the request for dismissal by attorneys for Shanti Sellz and Daniel Strauss.

Defense attorneys and prosecutors have 10 days to submit written objections or recommendations. Those remarks will be forwarded to U.S. District Judge Raner C. Collins, who will decide whether the volunteers with the group No More Deaths should be tried.

Defense attorneys argued that Sellz and Strauss were rendering medical aid and were not in violation of a law that forbids helping "in furtherance" of an illegal presence in the country.

Sellz and Strauss were driving three illegal immigrants last summer from the desert near Arivaca to Southside Presbyterian Church in Tucson when they were arrested.

Velasco said rendering aid in the desert with few resources is different than transporting illegal immigrants to a metropolitan area and releasing them.

"The issue, therefore, is whether the illegal aliens treated at Southside Presbyterian Church and thereafter allowed to melt into Tucson, Arizona, have been assisted 'in furtherance' of their illegal entry," Velasco wrote. "The answer is yes."

Finally a judge with common sense that doesn't kowtow to the OBL agenda in the name of so called compassion.

That's one in a row.

RR