Scott Warren Provided Food & Water to Migrants in Arizona; He Now Faces Up to 20 Years in Prison.

Democracy Now! Published on May 29, 2019

An Arizona humanitarian aid volunteer goes to trial today for providing water, food, clean clothes and beds to two undocumented migrants crossing the Sonoran Desert in southern Arizona. If convicted, Scott Warren could spend up to 20 years in prison. Warren, an activist with the Tucson-based No More Deaths, is charged with three felony counts of allegedly “harboring” undocumented immigrants. For years, No More Deaths and other humanitarian aid groups in southern Arizona have left water and food in the harsh Sonoran Desert, where the temperature often reaches three digits during summer, to help refugees and migrants survive the deadly journey across the U.S. border. Warren was arrested on January 17, 2018, just hours after No More Deaths released a report detailing how U.S. Border Patrol agents had intentionally destroyed more than 3,000 gallons of water left out for migrants crossing the border. The group also published a video showing border agents dumping out jugs of water in the desert. Hours after the report was published, authorities raided the Barn, a No More Deaths aid camp in Ajo, where they found two migrants who had sought temporary refuge. We speak with Scott Warren and his fellow No More Deaths volunteer and activist Catherine Gaffney in Tucson.

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See our new report, Interference with Humanitarian Aid: Death and Disappearance on the US-Mexico Border at www.thedisappearedreport.org.

Deadly Apprehension Methods: The Consequences of Chase and Scatter in the Wilderness.

Part 1 of a three-report series, Disappeared: How the US Border Enforcement Agencies Are Fueling a Missing Persons Crisis.

In this first report, we find that people who cross the border and are never seen again do not merely go missing, they are disappeared by the US border-enforcement system. Using surveys conducted in Nogales and data from Derechos's Missing Migrant Crisis Line, we find that the Border Patrol routinely chases border crossers into remote terrain causing them to scatter, become lost, and often die or disappear. 

To read the full report, go to www.thedisappearedreport.org.