Federal Judge Reverses Conviction of Border Volunteers, Challenging Government’s “Gruesome Logic”

U.S. District Judge Rosemary Márquez

News from Arizona.  Ryan Devereaux on The Intercept reports that a U.S. District Judge in Tucson, Arizona, has reversed the conviction of four humanitarian aid workers, ruling that the government had embraced a “gruesome logic” that criminalizes “interfering with a border enforcement strategy of deterrence by death.”  Here is the order.

U.S. District Judge Rosemary Márquez marked a rebuke of the Trump administration’s crackdown on humanitarian aid providers in southern Arizona.

The four defendants in the case were fined and given probation last year for entering the Cabeza Prieta Wildlife Refuge in the summer of 2017 without a permit, driving on a restricted access road and leaving food, water, and other humanitarian aid supplies for migrants passing through in the summer heat. They were the first among a group of volunteers with the faith-based humanitarian group, No More Deaths, to go to trial for their aid work in 2019.

The remains of roughly 3,000 migrants have been recovered in Pima County alone since 2000. Experts are confident that the true death toll is much higher.

KJ