The activist Scott Warren has been acquitted on charges he illegally harbored two Central American migrants, after facing two trials over what he insisted was simply helping people in need.
The Wednesday verdict by a jury in US district court came after jurors deliberated for just hours. It was the second trial for Warren; a mistrial was declared last June after a jury deadlocked on harboring charges.
Warren was stoic after the verdict was read. His supporters were crying at the news of the decision.
Warren, 37, testified that neutrality guides his work near the border and denied he has ever helped migrants hide or instructed them how to avoid authorities.
Greg Kuykendall, an attorney who defended Warren, said the new jury followed the law carefully.
“They parsed the evidence,” he said. “They paid rapt attention while we were putting on our defense and while the prosecution was putting on its case, and they decided that humanitarian aid is not always a crime, the way the government wanted it to be.
Warren was arrested in January 2018 by US agents who were staking out a humanitarian aid station in Arizona known as The Barn, where two Central American men had been staying for several days.
The prosecutor Nathaniel Walters said the men didn’t need medical attention and questioned the authenticity of Warren’s claim that he was “orienting” them before they left the camp.
The camp is run by a group that tries to prevent immigrants from dying in the desert.
Thousands of immigrants have died crossing the border since the mid-1990s, when increased enforcement pushed many to Arizona’s scorching desert.
“What they needed was a place to hide, and that’s what the defendant gave them, and that is an intent to violate the law,” Walters said.
Warren, a member of the group No More Deaths, says the group’s training and protocol prohibit advising migrants on how to elude authorities. The group drops off water for migrants in the desert and runs a camp to aid injured migrants. He said his interest is in saving lives.
“We need to work within the spirit of humanitarian aid and within the confines of the law,” Warren said.
He and his supporters say Donald Trump’s administration has increasingly scrutinized humanitarian groups that leave water in the desert and conduct search and rescue operations when they are asked to help find a missing migrant.
The federal judge overseeing the trial barred Warren from mentioning the president.
The border patrol had been investigating The Barn for months, according to documents released after news outlets sued to obtain them.
The documents show that in April 2017, an anonymous Arizona resident told border patrol officials that he suspected members of the group were harboring immigrants. About three months later, officials detained members of the group No More Deaths on suspicion of vandalizing a camera at Cabeza Prieta national wildlife refuge, where they regularly left water jugs.
In November 2017, agents interviewed residents who said they had noticed more traffic and littering outside The Barn.
Agents eventually encountered a man who said he had traveled across the desert with two other men who were picked up by a van.
Suspecting they might be at the No More Deaths building, agents began watching it on 17 January 2018, arresting Warren and the two migrants. The men were deported after providing video testimony.
