Border Patrol arrest of aid worker stirs tension

It is the job of U.S. Border Patrol agents to capture people crossing into the country illegally. In Arizona this month, they chose another target: one of the many volunteers who provide food, water and other supplies aimed at helping migrants survive in the desert.

Scott Warren, 35, a faculty associate at Arizona State University and a longtime volunteer with the aid group No More Deaths, was arrested Jan. 17 near the town of Ajo and charged in federal court with felony alien smuggling.

Immigrant advocates say the charge is retaliation against the aid group, which released a report and videos alleging Border Patrol agents destroyed supplies left for migrants.

“This is really an escalation in the criminalization of humanitarian aid work,” said Lee Sandusky, a volunteer with the group, which publicized the arrest. “We’ve long had a tenuous relationship with Border Patrol and other agencies in the borderlands, and there seems to be an uptick in the targeting of humanitarian aid work in the past year.”

The arrest comes a month after federal officials filed a range of misdemeanor charges against nine volunteers from the same group for leaving plastic jugs of water in the desert.

Several groups routinely leave aid for migrants along the border from California to Texas. Volunteers say their goal is to save migrant lives, not break the law.

No More Deaths largely avoided clashes with the Border Patrol, which has long had a policy of not disturbing vital supplies left for migrants. Officials said they encourage aid groups to file complaints if the policy is violated. But Sandusky said Border Patrol supervisors have been reluctant to punish agents even when volunteers showed them videos of misconduct.

“There is no means to hold these agents accountable, which is part of the reason for the report,” Sandusky said.

The report said that more than 3,586 gallon jugs of water left for migrants had been destroyed in an 800-square-mile area in southern Arizona between 2012 and 2015.

Warren, who was arrested hours after the report was released, is free while he awaits trial.

A Border Patrol spokesman denied that the agency targeted Warren or the aid group. “We have tried to work with the groups out here,” said Steven Passement, acting special operations supervisor in Tucson. “They want to save lives; we want to save lives. Intentionally targeting them and looking at them — that’s not what we’re doing.”

Along the Arizona frontier, the Border Patrol maintains a system of 34 rescue beacons, some paired with satellite phones, to aid migrants in remote areas.

Passement said water left for migrants in the desert will never be enough to sustain them and instead “is giving them false hope.”