Thread: Border Patrol arrests City High gradShanti Sellz charged for

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Saturday, July 16, 2005

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Border Patrol arrests City High grad

Shanti Sellz charged for helping illegal aliens



By Mike McWilliams
Iowa City Press-Citizen



Sellz

A City High graduate is making headlines out West after U.S. border agents arrested her last week for allegedly smuggling illegal immigrants in the Arizona desert.

Shanti Sellz, 23, is a volunteer with the No More Deaths organization -- a humanitarian group that provides food, water and medical assistance to Mexican migrants crossing the desert on foot. The 2000 City High graduate and another person were arrested in Tucson, Ariz., July 9 and are the first two arrests "in the 5-year history of humanitarian aid organizations working to save lives in the desert," according to the No More Deaths Web site.

"I think people who don't live down here have a hard time grasping what it's like," Sellz said earlier this week via phone from Tucson. "It's hot in Iowa, but the high (Tuesday) was 110 degrees, and for someone to be exposed to that temperature all day with no food or water, it's dangerous."

Sellz said the group patrols the desert and provides food, water and basic medical care to illegal immigrants in distress. It evacuates those it deems to be critically ill to a hospital, which is what reportedly happened when U.S. Border Patrol agents arrested Sellz and a fellow volunteer.

According to news reports, the three male immigrants had reportedly been walking in the desert without sufficient water for three days. All had complained of stomach illnesses and at least one had repeatedly vomited.

Sellz and the other volunteer were charged with felony counts of transportation of an undocumented person and obstruction of justice before being released from custody Monday. More than 100 supporters reportedly packed the courthouse during their arraignment.

Because the matter is pending in court, Sellz declined to comment on the events leading up to her arrest, but she said she intends to fight the charges.

"We have amazing support in the community, and I know I have amazing support back in Iowa as well," she said.

Sellz, a first-year biology student at San Juan College in Farmington, N.M., said she left Iowa City right after graduation. She said her travels have taken her across the western states, Central America and South America.

Last summer, Sellz said, she joined with No More Deaths while living near the U.S-Mexican border.

"After witnessing the crisis down here, it would be awful not to act," she said. "I don't believe that any people should be subject to death because of government policies that force them to migrate."

Although Sellz' work takes place hundreds of miles from Iowa, its effects are known here.

"I don't think most people understand what's gone through to get to Iowa," she said. "People risk their lives to come up there and work."

Michael Sellz, Shanti's father, said he has always supported his daughter's work.

"No one should have to risk their lives in pursuit of a better quality of living for themselves and their families," Michael Sellz said. "People in distress need to be helped, whatever their circumstances may be."

Susan Rogusky, Sellz' mother, said her daughter has always been socially and environmentally conscious and a compassionate person.

"Shanti is an amazing young women," she said. "She is smart, brave and willing to stand up for what she believes in, even if it means her life will be more difficult as a result. I am so proud to say I am her mom and so blessed to have her in my life."


Reach Mike McWilliams at 339-7360 or mmcwilliams@press-citizen.com
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LETTER TO THE EDITOR
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Ladies and Gentlemen of the Press-Citizen:

As an Arizonan and a Minuteman, let me fill in the missing pieces of Shanti Seltz' arrest.

"No More Deaths" is a front organization to aid and abet illegal immigration. From the early 1980s, South Side Presbyterian has been a notorious way-station for illegal alien smugglers, known to every Border Patrol agent in the Tucson sector. That's been true long before 1994, when Operation Gatekeeper re-directed illegal alien entry into the Arizona desert.

NMD members could both obey the law and prevent deaths with one call to the BP. Instead, they choose to violate the law by providing medical help "prescribed" by a fellow NMD aiding and abetting nurse, then sending illegals to a safe house for continuing their illegal entry into the US. This time, they got caught.

Take it from someone who watched illegals' entering through night-vision binoculars, the "pursuit of a better quality of living for themselves and their families" is another scam perpetrated by the open-borders lobby.

Every savvy American knows what VP Cheney finally admitted: We have no idea who they are, where they come from (BP has documented illegal aliens from every terrorist-sponsoring country on the State Dept list) or why they're entering the US. Shanti Seltz and No More Deaths members don't know either..

Evidently Shanti closes her eyes to the illegal aliens' insults to Arizona's environment: the knee-keep filth they leave behind in the "lay-up" areas. Glass bottles capable of generating a brush fire when the sun hits, used baby diapers and feminine hygiene materials, rotten food, litter and other trash. "Environmentally conscious?" Evidently Shanti inherited being out to lunch from her mother.

Sandra Miller
Phoenix, AZ

I heard you on Terry Anderson last night. Good man!

Great Post Sixx!