Bleeding-Heart Liberal Aids Migrant Invasion at U.S. Southern Border, Faces..(update)
Bleeding-Heart Liberal Aids Migrant Invasion at U.S. Southern Border, Faces 20 Years in Prison
This self-styled humanitarian may be serving hard time before long.
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Published 52 mins ago on Jun 9, 2019
By Shane Trejo
Humanitarian volunteer Scott Warren is facing 20 years in prison after being apprehended on January 17, 2018 for assisting the migrant invasion at the U.S. southern border.
Warren, a 36-year-old resident of Ajo, AZ, worked with activist group No More Deaths until his arrest. He was providing water, food and other supplies to help migrants invade the country from his organization’s compound.
He was arrested alongside two illegals, Kristian Perez-Villanueva of El Salvador and Arnaldo Sacaria-Goday of Honduras. He was charged with three counts of harboring illegal aliens and conspiring to do the same. His lawyer maintains that Warren is just a Good Samaritan who should be let off the hook.
His defense attorney, Gregory Kuykendall, said during a court proceeding that Warren is a “law-abiding, life-giving Good Samaritan,” who “never gave [the migrant men] anything besides basic human kindness.” His parents are also making emotional appeals on their son’s behalf.
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“We were crushed to learn that he was facing serious federal charges that could result in his incarceration for many years,” his father, Mark Warren said to a crowd of protesters outside of the U.S. District Courthouse in Tucson.
“We had always been concerned, worried as parents about his work in a dangerous and tumultuous region. We just never imagined that one of the great dangers he faced was from our own government,” he added.
But border security maintains that they are just enforcing the law, and that activists like Warren are aiding lawlessness regardless of how well-intentioned their efforts may be.
U.S. Attorney Nathaniel Walters maintains that Warren’s apprehension “is not about humanitarian aid,” but simply a matter of justice. The court will ultimately decide whether Warren ‘intended to violate the law’ by harboring refugees in the No More Deaths’ base of operations in Ajo referred to as “The Barn.”
U.S. Border Patrol agents John Marquez and Brendan Burns testified in court that they saw illegal aliens Perez-Villanueva and Sacaria-Goday around a gas station. Surveillance video shown to the court seemed to confirm the agents’ testimony.
Burns also claims that Warren was seen showing the illegal aliens how to evade checkpoints. Warren’s defense attorney attempted to smear the border agents as using racial profiling to identify their targets.
“They matched their description? Or they matched the description of two brown people?” the attorney asked.
“In my experience, they were other-than-Mexican… In my mind, these could possibly be them,” Marquez replied.
“You didn’t know anything about them other than, they were not Mexican, isn’t that true?” Kuykendall responded.
At least four other activists with No More Deaths have been prosecuted since 2017 when the Trump administration began cracking down on volunteers assisting the migrant invasion and exacerbating the national emergency on the U.S. southern border.
The trial re-convened today and will continue until a verdict is reached.
https://bigleaguepolitics.com/bleedi...ars-in-prison/
Jury Acquits Aid Worker Accused Of Helping Border-Crossing Migrants In Arizona
November 21, 20192:59 PM ET
Bobby Allyn
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Scott Warren (center) of Ajo, Ariz., celebrates with his attorneys Amy Knight and Greg Kuykendall outside court in Tucson, Ariz., on Wednesday.
Astrid Galvan/AP
A federal jury in Tucson, Ariz., has acquitted a humanitarian aid worker who was charged with harboring a pair of migrants from Central America after Border Patrol agents reported seeing him provide food and shelter in the Arizona desert.
It was the second time federal prosecutors had put Scott Warren of the faith-based border aid group No More Deaths on trial.
A jury deadlocked during his first trial on whether offering food, water and shelter to two young men who illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border makes Warren a criminal. This time, the jury unanimously agreed that he should be found not guilty of harboring undocumented immigrants — prosecutions that have been on the rise under President Trump's hard-line immigration policies.
"The government failed in its attempt to criminalize basic human kindness," Warren said after the verdict was read Wednesday.
Border Patrol agents arrested Warren last year after conducting surveillance on a humanitarian aid station known as "The Barn," some 40 miles north of the border.
The two migrant men, Kristian Perez-Villanueva, 23, and José Arnaldo Sacaria-Goday, 20, crossed the border on foot after walking through the desert for two days and two nights. They found their way to the Barn, where Warren gave them food, water and shelter for three days, according to court documents. On Jan. 17, 2018, at around 5:40 p.m. local time, Border Patrol agents and Pima County Sheriff's deputies drove to the Barn and arrested Warren and the two migrants.
Warren, a 37-year-old geography teacher from Ajo, Ariz., and others with No More Deaths carry jugs of water, food, first-aid kits and other supplies for migrants traversing the Arizona desert.
His lawyers have argued for years that their work is not illegal because they are offering humanitarian assistance to desperate border crossers regardless of legal status, a perspective the jury affirmed in fewer than three hours of deliberations. Warren's legal team also maintained that his aid work is in accordance with his religious beliefs that instruct him to help those in need.
"They decided that humanitarian aid is not always a crime the way the government wanted it to be," said Warren's attorney, Greg Kuykendall. Instead, they decided that humanitarian aid is virtually never a crime."
Federal prosecutors told the jury that Warren was complicit in the migrants' dangerous and illegal journey across the border, not just by providing shelter but by helping them avoid a checkpoint to stay out of the reach of Border Patrol agents.
"Although we're disappointed in the verdict, it won't deter use from continuing to prosecute all the entry and reentry cases that we have, as well as all the harboring and smuggling cases and trafficking that we have," said Michael Bailey, the U.S. attorney for Arizona. "We won't distinguish between whether someone is harboring or trafficking for money or whether they're doing it out of a misguided sense of social justice or belief in open borders."
Warren still faces a single misdemeanor charge in a separate case in which he is accused of driving into a national wildlife refuge and leaving gallons of water for migrants. He had also been charged with littering and driving in a restricted road inside the refuge. The littering count was dismissed, and Warren was found guilty of the vehicle charge. He is set to be sentenced in February.
His acquittal on two felony harboring counts and one conspiracy to transport count was celebrated by the Rev. Mary Katherine Morn, who runs the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, a nonprofit advocacy group. No More Deaths is a ministry of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Tucson.
"The verdict is a sharp and welcome rebuke to the administration's ongoing effort to criminalize compassion — and marks a major victory for all of the humanitarian workers willing to risk their own lives to save those of others," Morn said.
https://www.npr.org/2019/11/21/78165...nts-in-arizona
