A border activist charged with helping a pair of migrants with water, food and lodging is set to go on trial in U.S. court in Arizona.
Defendant Scott Daniel Warren has argued that his spiritual values compel him to help all people in distress.
The trial is scheduled to begin Wednesday in Tucson, with the 36-year-old Warren charged with harboring migrants and conspiring to transport and harbor two Mexican men found with him who were in the U.S. illegally.
In this 2018 photo, Scott Daniel Warren, who is charged with human smuggling walks in to U.S. District Court in Tucson, Ariz. Warren, a border activist charged with helping a pair of migrants with water, food and lodging, is set to go on trial on Wednesday, May 29, 2019, in U.S. court in Arizona. (Kelly PresnellArizona Daily Star via AP)
Thousands of migrants have died crossing the border since the mid-1990s, when heightened enforcement in San Diego and El Paso, Texas, pushed traffic into Arizona's scorching deserts.
Prosecutors have argued that Kristian Perez-Villanueva and Jose Arnaldo Sacaria-Goday, the two migrants, were never in any real distress.
Warren's parents have gathered more than 126,000 online petition signatures asking the court to drop the case. They delivered the petitions Friday to the courthouse.
In this 2018 photo, Mark Warren and his wife Pam Warren talk about their son, Scott Daniel Warren, after Scott appeared in federal district court on a hearing to dismiss felony charges for harboring undocumented immigrants, in Tucson, Ariz. Scott Warren, a border activist charged with helping a pair of migrants with water, food and lodging, is set to go on trial on Wednesday, May 29, 2019, in U.S. court in Arizona. (Ernesto Portillo Jr.Arizona Daily Star via AP)
In a motion to dismiss the charges, Warren's defense team has argued their client "could not, consistent with his conscience and spiritual beliefs, turn away two migrants in the desert.
"For many, the decision ends in a painful and lonely death in the remote reaches of the Sonoran Desert," Warren's parents Pam and Mark Warren wrote in the petition sponsored by MoveOn, a progressive advocacy group.
"No one deserves to die in the desert. No one deserves to go to prison for trying to prevent those deaths," It says.
FILE - This March 2, 2019, file photo, shows a Customs and Border Control agent patrolling on the US side of a razor-wire-covered border wall along the Mexico east of Nogales, Ariz. A border activist charged with helping a pair of migrants with water, food and lodging is set to go on trial in U.S. court in Arizona. Defendant Scott Daniel Warren has argued that his spiritual values compel him to help all people in distress. The trial is scheduled to begin Wednesday, May 29, 2019, in Tucson, with the 36-year-old Warren charged with harboring migrants and conspiring to transport and harbor two Mexican men found with him who were in the U.S. illegally. (AP PhotoCharlie Riedel, File)
Warren volunteers with the humanitarian group No More Deaths, which assists migrants near the border in Arizona by providing supplies.
Warren was arrested in early 2018 when Border Patrol agents found him at a property in Ajo, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) north of the border, where the two recently arrived migrants were staying. The building is used by nonprofit groups in the area.
Over the course of several days, Warren provides the pair with beds, clean clothes, food and water at the site, authorities said.
The migrants told border agents they learned about the building during online research about ways to cross the border.
Warren's arrest came several hours after No More Deaths gave news organizations videos of a Border Patrol agent kicking over water jugs meant for immigrants and of another agent pouring gallons of water on the ground.
TOKYO (AP) — The American envoy to the United Nations called Friday for countries armed with atomic weapons to pursue nuclear disarmament as she visited the atomic bomb museum in Nagasaki, Japan.
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, who became the first U.S. cabinet member to visit Nagasaki, stressed the importance of dialogue and diplomacy amid a growing nuclear threat in the region.
“We must continue to work together to create an environment for nuclear disarmament. We must continue to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons in every corner of the world,” she said after a tour of the atomic bomb museum.
“For those of us who already have those weapons, we must pursue arms control. We can and must work to ensure that Nagasaki is the last place to ever experience the horror of nuclear weapons,” she added, standing in front of colorful hanging origami cranes, a symbol of peace.
The United States dropped the world’s first atomic bomb on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, destroying the city and killing 140,000 people. A second attack three days later on Nagasaki killed 70,000 more people. Japan surrendered on Aug. 15, ending World War II and its nearly half-century of aggression in Asia.
Nagasaki Gov. Kengo Oishi said in a statement that he believed Thomas-Greenfield's visit and her first-person experience at the museum “will be a strong message in promoting momentum of nuclear disarmament for the international society at a time the world faces a severe environment surrounding atomic weapons.”
Oishi said he conveyed to the ambassador the increasingly important role of Nagasaki and Hiroshima in emphasizing the need of nuclear disarmament.
Thomas-Greenfield's visit to Japan comes on the heels of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's official visit to the United States last week and is aimed at deepening Washington's trilateral ties with Tokyo and Seoul. During her visit to South Korea earlier this week, she held talks with South Korean officials, met with defectors from North Korea and visited the demilitarized zone.
The ambassador said the United States is looking into setting up a new mechanism for monitoring North Korea's nuclear weapons program. Russia and China have thwarted U.S.-led efforts to step up U.N. sanctions on North Korea over its ballistic missile testing since 2022, underscoring a deepening divide between permanent Security Council members over Russia’s war on Ukraine.
She said it would be “optimal” to launch the new system next month, though it is uncertain if that is possible.
The U.N. Security Council established a committee to monitor sanctions, and the mandate for its panel of experts to investigate violations had been renewed for 14 years until last month, when Russia vetoed another renewal.
In its most recent report, the panel of experts said it is investigating 58 suspected North Korean cyberattacks between 2017 and 2023 valued at approximately $3 billion, with the money reportedly being used to help fund its weapons development.
The United States, Japan and South Korea have been deepening security ties amid growing tension in the region from North Korea and China.
U.S. Ambassador to United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield, left, and Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, right, shake hands during a meeting Friday, April 19, 2024, at prime minister's office in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, Pool)
U.S. Ambassador to United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield, left, and Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, right, shake hands during a meeting Friday, April 19, 2024, at prime minister's office in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, Pool)
U.S. Ambassador to United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield, right, speaks to Rahm Emanuel, U.S. Ambassador to Japan, second right, as they wait for a meeting with Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida Friday, April 19, 2024, at prime minister's office in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, Pool)
U.S. Ambassador to United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield, left, and Rahm Emanuel, U.S. Ambassador to Japan, right, walk to meet Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida Friday, April 19, 2024, at prime minister's office in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, Pool)
U.S. Ambassador to United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield, left, and Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, right, talk prior to a meeting Friday, April 19, 2024, at prime minister's office in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, Pool)
U.S. Ambassador to United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield, left, and Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, right, prepare to talk during a meeting Friday, April 19, 2024, at prime minister's office in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, Pool)
