Timing of arrest and charges for Scott Daniel Warren, a volunteer with No More Deaths, raises suspicion

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Hours after a humanitarian group released videos showing border patrol agents kicking over water bottles left for migrants in the Arizona desert, a volunteer for the organization was arrested and charged with harboring undocumented immigrants.

Scott Daniel Warren, 35, a volunteer with the group No More Deaths, faces a federal charge of harboring two people in the country illegally.



Caitlin Deighan, an activist with No More Deaths, stopped short of calling the arrest retaliation but said it looked suspicious that Warren had been charged so soon after the release of the videos.

“We see it as an escalation and criminalization of aid workers,” Deighan said on Monday.

The border patrol did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

William Walker, an attorney for Warren, said his client’s actions were not criminal.

“This is a humanitarian aid worker trying to save lives,” Walker said.

His arrest last week came after border patrol agents conducted surveillance on a building where two immigrants were given food, water, beds and clean clothes, according to federal court records.

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No More Deaths last week gave news organizations videos taken between 2010 and 2017, mostly by cameras at its desert camp. In one clip, a border patrol agent kicked over five water jugs meant to supply immigrants. In another, an agent pours gallons of water on the ground.

In 2005, two group volunteers were arrested after they drove three immigrants from a desert location to a Tucson church to get medical attention from a doctor and nurse. The indictment was eventually dismissed by a federal judge.

No More Deaths is a coalition of religious organizations, human rights advocates and individuals who provide food, water and medical assistance to immigrants crossing the Arizona desert from Mexico.

Immigrants who enter the United States through that terrain face many dangers, including walking for several days in the scorching heat.

Thousands have died crossing the border since the mid-1990s, when heightened enforcement in San Diego and El Paso, Texas, pushed traffic into Arizona’s deserts. In recent years, south Texas has become the busiest corridor for illegal crossings and also the most deadly.