I know I said I would write about the border wall in Nogales next, but the news out of
Tucson today is sending me in a different direction. Four people who left water in the desert, the same humanitarian work I’m here to do, were found guilty today in federal court.
Home in Massachusetts I hadn’t heard about this big court case filling the news in Arizona. But when I visited the court for Operation Streamline on Wed., I heard volunteers were sitting in witness in another courtroom, and since then I keep hearing about it on the news.
In Aug. 2017 four volunteers left water in the desert. They are part of No More Deaths, a humanitarian group similar to the Samaritans I’m volunteering with. The difference is that they left the water jugs and food on the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge. Federal prosecutors said the volunteers committed a crime by entering the refuge and leaving water without obtaining a permit. Apparently rules about accessing the refuge have been changing over the last few years; first you had to get a permit to enter, then that July language was added to the permit to make it illegal to leave anything behind, specifically including water, food and medical supplies. And so the humanitarian workers opted not to apply for a permit that they would not be following.
The young volunteers argued that they were “acting in accordance with a higher law,”
citing their religious beliefs. 43 sets of human remains have been recovered from the refuge since the beginning of 2017 (see the quilt image that memorializes the deaths of 123 immigrants who died in the Tucson section of the desert in 2017 - 2018). The volunteers saw this as a matter of life and death.
The convictions are misdemeanors. The volunteers still await sentencing, and face up to six months in federal prison. A lawyer speaking at Common Ground on the Border is hopeful the young people will just get probation, but of course the conviction remains on their records. He and others believe jail time for these defendants was not the goal of the arrest. It was to send a message.
Many people I’ve spoken to fear this verdict will have a chilling affect on humanitarian efforts in the desert. And they believe that is the intention. I’ve heard from Samaritan leaders they have a positive relationship with Border Patrol; BP knows what Samaritans are doing, and do not intend to prevent volunteers from bringing water into the desert or charge them with any crime. But members of No More Deaths had been told by an assistant US attorney that his office wasn’t interested in persecuting the volunteers. So there is a worry that circumstances could change at any time. But there is also a conviction that this life-and-death work must go on. And, of course, that we must work to create immigration policy that works for all, with no more deaths.
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