Humanitarian Aid Is Never A Crime – No More Deaths
Shanti and Daniel’s Story:
No More Deaths volunteers, Shanti Sellz and Daniel Strauss, both 23, were arrested by the U.S. Border Patrol for medically evacuating 3 people in critical condition from the 105-degree Arizona desert in July 2005.
Shanti and Daniel were following the protocol of NMD training (acknowledged by NMD and US Border Patrol) by consulting medical professionals who advised them to evacuate the critically ill men to a medical facility, and then consulting a NMD attorney who approved the evacuation.
Their arrest and subsequent prosecution for providing humanitarian aid has shocked people of conscience around the world. These young humanitarians are facing prosecution by the US government, which could result in a 15-year prison sentence.
We urgently need your help and support to stop this prosecution.
STATEMENT BY AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL:
"...On the basis of the facts as presented, Amnesty International is supporting calls for the charges to be dropped in this case and considers that, if convicted and imprisoned, Daniel Strauss and Shanti Sellz would be prisoners of conscience."
No More Deaths is a coalition of communities and individuals of faith and conscience that works to end the suffering and deaths of migrants in the Arizona-Sonora borderlands.
We embrace an action plan that includes movable desert camps, support of migrant aid centers, maintenance of water stations, Samaritan patrols that search the desert for migrants in need, and advocacy on behalf of migrant-related issues. We base our work on the principle of civil initiative as described by Jim Corbett.
Working toward having no more deaths in our desert, the No More Deaths community has been running a campaign throughout the fall of 2005 to get the charges against Shanti Sellz and Daniel Strauss dropped. We have invited people in southern Arizona and around the world to join a growing chorus of voices calling for the charges to be dropped.
Holding a press conference each week for nine weeks, we heard from community leaders from many sectors including medical professionals, labor groups, environmental organizations, human rights organizations, elected officials, religious leaders representing entire religious communities, the former US Attorney for the District of Arizona, and others.
The current US Attorney, Paul Charlton, has the power to drop this prosecution, and we have directed our appeals to drop the case to him. We have sent at least 30,000 (and likely, we believe, over 50,000) post cards to Paul Charlton telling him to drop the charges. Multiple religious leaders, including Catholic and Episcopal bishops and the Moderator of the Presbyterian Church USA, have spoken with Paul Charlton on behalf of Shanti and Daniel.
So far, the United States has chosen not to listen to the people of southern Arizona asking for this prosecution to be stopped. A trial date was tentatively set for December 20th, 2005, but was postponed first because the judge was going on vacation at that time and second because lawyers for Sellz and Strauss filed a motion to dismiss the charges which was still pending until the middle of January. The motion has since been denied. Lawyers for the two volunteers estimate that the trial will begin in late March or early April of 2006.
Following are complete statements and pieces of statements made by some of the community leaders who spoke at the nine press conferences. Also included are statements from national and international human rights groups supporting the call for the charges to be dropped. Regretfully, many of the most dynamic statements made at the press conferences were not first written down on paper, and we do not have them transcribed to share here.
At the end is a list of community leaders and groups who have signed a pledge saying that, if they were to find themselves in a situation in which an undocumented person needed some form of humanitarian aid, they would act as Shanti and Daniel did and as volunteers for No More Deaths and Samaritan Patrol continue to do, providing whatever form of humanitarian assistance the people needed and that they could provide. The pledge also affirmed that the signers would be willing to have their names used publicly. No More Deaths published a full-paged ad in the Arizona Daily Star on January 1, 2006 including all of those groups as well as about 2000 names of individuals who signed the pledge.
Contents:
A DEFINITION OF CIVIL INITIATIVE
by Jim Corbett
"Isn't what you do illegal?" No. We work within the law to save lives. We do not engage in civil disobedience, but rather civil initiative.
• Civil initiative is formed by this function; our responsibility for protecting the persecuted must be balanced by our accountability to the legal order.
• As formed by accountability, civil initiative is nonviolent, truthful, catholic, dialogical, germane, volunteer-based, and community-centered.
• Nonviolence checks vigilantism. Civil initiative neither evades nor seizes police powers.
• Truthfulness is the foundation for accountability. Civil initiative must be open and subject to public examination.
• Civil initiative is catholic (in the sense of all-embracing) rather than factional, protecting those whose rights are being violated regardless of the victim’s ideological position or political usefulness.
• Civil initiative is dialogical, addressing government officials as persons, not just as adversaries or functionaries. Any genuine reconciliation of civil initiative with bureaucratic practice- the discovery of an accommodation that does not compromise human rights-is a joint achievement: civil initiative can never be based on non-negotiable demands.
• Action that is germane to victims’ needs for protection distinguishes civil initiative from reactions that are primarily symbolic or expressive. As a corollary, media coverage and public opinion are of secondary importance when our central concern is to do justice rather than to petition others to do it.
• Civil initiative’s emergency exercise of governmental functions is volunteer-based. The community must never forfeit its duty to protect the victims of human rights violations, but no new bureaucracy should be formed that would oppose the return of governmental functions to those constitutionally designated to assume responsibility.
• Civil initiative is community-centered. To actualize the Nuremberg mandate, our exercise of civil initiative must be socially sustained and congregationally coherent; it must integrate, outlast and outreach individual acts of conscience.
NO MORE DEATHS' ADAPTATION OF CIVIL INITIATIVE PRINCIPLES/COMMITMENT TO NO MORE DEATHS CIVIL INITIATIVE PROTOCOL
As a volunteer with No More Deaths I agree to work within the framework of Civil Initiative:
• My actions will be non-violent.
• I will be truthful and open about the work I do, understanding this work is subject to public examination.
• I will be respectful of people with differing opinions and ideologies.
• I will address government officials with this same respect and consider them people with whom I can dialogue, rather than treating them as adversaries.
• My actions will be germane to migrants’ needs for humanitarian assistance. Their protection and safety is our priority. I will offer aid and respect a migrant’s choice to accept or decline emergency assistance.
• I understand my work with No More Deaths is volunteer humanitarian assistance.
• I understand my work with No More Deaths is community-centered, and that community decisions must outweigh individual acts of conscience. Therefore, I will respect the protocol of this movement and act in harmony with my fellow volunteers to not jeopardize future humanitarian efforts of No More Deaths.
Explanation of the Motion to Dismiss Charges
The motion to dismiss filed by No More Deaths attorneys Bill Walker and Jeff Rogers is based on previous negotiation with federal officials, wherein a protocol was established that recognized as legal the life-saving work of No More Deaths. Because Shanti and Daniel had been following this protocol prior to their arrest, it is inconsistent and unreasonable for the government to then accuse them of criminal conduct. The United States Supreme Court, in Cox v. Louisiana (1965), explicitly ruled that when a criminal defendant relies on the advice of a government official, the government may be barred from prosecuting that defendant for prohibited acts if they are committed in reliance on the government’s advice – a decision that has since been upheld by the 9th Circuit Court in United States v. Tallmadge (1987) and United States v. Ramirez-Valencia (2000).
Furthermore, the motion states that “the cases against the defendants should be dismissed because, as a matter of law, the undisputed facts indicate that there has been no violation of Title 8, United States Code 1324(a)(1)(A)(ii)”. In United States v. Moreno (1977), the 9th Circuit Court ruled that “mere transportation of a person known to be [an illegal] alien is not sufficient to constitute a violation of this section” and “based upon humanitarian concern, the transportation of a known undocumented alien to a hospital following an injury or illness does not appear to come within the purview of s 1324(a)(2). (emphasis added). Thus, the courts have already ruled that the provision of humanitarian aid does not constitute a violation of the law.
STATEMENT BY AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL:
Public Statement
AI Index: AMR 51/201/2005 (Public)
News Service No: 341
13 December 2005
USA: Amnesty International’s concerns about criminal charges filed against two human rights activists who assisted migrants in desert
Amnesty International said today that it was raising concerns with the US authorities about the filing of criminal charges against Daniel Strauss and Shanti Sellz after they attempted to provide humanitarian assistance to three migrants found in a distressed condition in the Arizona desert last July.
Daniel Strauss and Shanti Sellz were members of a group of volunteers called “No More Deaths”, a network of individuals and organizations set up primarily to try to prevent deaths of irregular or undocumented migrants, hundreds of whom die each year after crossing into the USA from Mexico. The largest proportion die while crossing the Arizona desert which has reportedly claimed more than 260 lives in the past year alone. Many of these individuals died as a result of exposure to extreme temperatures, such as the record high temperatures that were reached during July 2005.
The three migrants picked up by Daniel Strauss and Shanti Sellz on 9 July 2005, were reported to have been extremely thirsty and hungry, suffering from persistent vomiting and from severe, crippling blisters which, if left untreated, could prevent a person from walking, a frequent cause of death in the desert. Strauss and Sellz were driving the three men for treatment by volunteer medical professionals in Tuscon when they were stopped by the United States (US) Border Patrol and arrested.
Daniel Strauss and Shanti Sellz were charged with committing two felonies under federal law: transporting illegal aliens and conspiring to do so. To be guilty under the statute in question the alleged violator must be found to have transported an illegal alien “in furtherance of such violation of law”, the latter referring to the migrant’s irregular status. The charges carry a maximum penalty of 15 years’ imprisonment. According to their attorneys, it is not illegal under US law solely to provide humanitarian assistance, and they are seeking to have the charges dropped. A court hearing on a motion to drop the charges is due to take place on 14 December.
Amnesty International recognizes the sovereign right of states to control their borders, and does not condone contravening the law. However, the organization stresses that no policy of border controls can be at the expense of the international human rights obligations of the state. Amnesty International is concerned that in this case Daniel Strauss and Shanti Sellz face punishment, possibly involving a prison term, solely for providing humanitarian aid to individuals in need of urgent assistance. Given the high death toll among undocumented migrants crossing the Arizona desert, Strauss and Sellz were arguably acting directly to protect and preserve life, a basic human right to which everyone is entitled.
Amnesty International notes that at no point did either of the two assist migrants to enter the USA in contravention of the law, nor did they appear to be helping them to circumvent immigration controls. Their activities were confined to assisting the three men appearing to be in need of urgent medical treatment. Amnesty International further notes reports that volunteers have provided humanitarian assistance in similar circumstances openly for several years without being penalized.
In view of these circumstances, and on the basis of the facts as presented, Amnesty International is supporting calls for the charges to be dropped in this case and considers that, if convicted and imprisoned, Daniel Strauss and Shanti Sellz would be prisoners of conscience.
Two of the three migrants picked up by Daniel Strauss and Shanti Sellz on 9 July were immediately deported, without receiving medical attention. The third was detained for two months as a “material witness” in the case and deported without a hearing after he had made a video-taped statement which was used to indict Strauss and Sellz. All are believed to be Mexican and included a father and son.
Amnesty International believes that all migrants, including migrants who are irregular or undocumented, should have individual access to fair and transparent procedures prior to expulsion which should include the possibility to submit reasons against expulsion and the possibility to have the case reviewed by an independent authority. The USA should ensure that the fundamental human rights of all migrants are protected prior to and during any process of expulsion.
STATEMENT BY ACLU OF ARIZONA:
ACLU OF ARIZONA JOINS COALITION TO URGE NO PROSECUTION OF GOOD SAMARITANS – DECEMBER 13, 2005
http://www.acluaz.org/News/PressReleases/12_13_05.htm
“…The ACLU of Arizona resolved: “We believe it is a violation of the constitution to prosecute people who have a good faith belief that they are protecting or saving the life of another.” The 5th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution requires that “No person” shall “be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process.” This protection extends to the life of the person being rescued.
The ACLU-AZ believes that if prosecution of the No More Deaths workers is successful, it will have a chilling effect on all rescue efforts. Without these rescues, hundreds more will die in our deserts, depriving them of their fundamental right to life…”
STATEMENT BY BATES BUTLER, FORMER U.S. DISTRICT ATTORNEY FOR ARIZONA:
October 19, 2005
Today we come together to ask the United States to drop all charges against Shanti Sellz and Daniel Strauss. Shanti and Daniel are humanitarians not criminals. Humanitarian aid is never a crime.
On July 9th No More Deaths volunteers encountered three very sick men who reported blood in their diarrhea, persistent vomiting and disabling blisters. The men had survived the scorching July heat of the Arizona desert by drinking water from cattle tanks, and it took its toll. At least they survived. More people died in the Tucson sector during July 2005 than any other month since anyone has been keeping track.
For us, not one death is acceptable.
A certified medical technician in the No More Deaths Camp that day examined these men and instructed Daniel Strauss to call the No More Deaths volunteer medical personnel in Tucson for directions as to how to proceed.
Drs. Dalton McClelland and Norma Price and registered nurse Helen Lundgren spoke to Daniel that day and instructed him to medically evacuate the sick men. A volunteer lawyer verified the instruction to medically evacuate the men.
The group never made it to Tucson. The migrants, Shanti, and Daniel were stopped and arrested on their way to see the doctor. Not only did they never make it to the doctor, both of these young people were charged with committing two serious felonies, transporting an “illegal alien” and conspiring to do so. All three migrants were deported; none received medical attention, although the No More Deaths volunteer doctor and nurse went to the Border Patrol to examine and treat them. The Border Patrol turned the nurse and the doctor away.
We believe in the sanctity of all human life and we believe what happened on July 9th was wrong. We call on the United States to drop all charges against Shanti Sellz and Daniel Strauss. Humanitarian aid is never a crime.
STATEMENT FROM THE CONSEJO CONSULTIVO INSTITUTO DEL MEXICANO EN EL EXTERIOR (CC-IME):
RESOLUTION TO ENDORSE THE TUCSON-BASED NO MORE DEATHS/NO MAS MUERTES CAMPAIGN “HUMANITARIAN AID IS NEVER A CRIME.”
Resolved, the Consejo Consultivo Instituto del Mexicano en el Exterior (CC-IME), recognizes that the immigration and border policy of the United States is flawed and has caused increasing numbers of migrant deaths each year since the implementation of Operation Gatekeeper in 1994; this fiscal year in Arizona/Sonora border alone 282 deaths were recorded, many of who remain simply marked “unknown/desconocido” and this list does not include all those bodies not recovered and whose families continue to search for them; further that the present political atmosphere in the United States makes a comprehensive immigration, border and bilateral-negotiated policy reform a distant reality, we therefore call upon the United States Attorney for the District of Arizona, Paul Charlton, to:
• End the prosecution and dismiss all charges against Daniel Strauss and Shanti Sellz, two university students, volunteers for the faith-based No More Deaths/No Mas Muertes, who are criminally charged for driving three sick migrants out of the desert to receive medical help at the advice of a medical professional and a lawyer;
• Meet with Tucson religious leaders and others to establish the legal parameters of the human right to provide humanitarian aid to migrants.
Finally, we agree to attach our organization’s name to a public statement acknowledging the above resolution.
[followed by signatures of all fifty members of the CC-IME of 2005]
STATEMENT BY RICK UFFORD-CHASE, MODERATOR OF THE 216TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH (USA):
216th General Assembly (2004) • Rick Ufford-Chase, Moderator • Jean Marie Peacock, Vice-Moderator
November 9, 2005
It has always been the work of the church to respond to those who are suffering. Today, those of us who are leaders of our religious institutions must speak out once more to insist that we will defend the rights of people of faith and good conscience who act openly and nonviolently in the defense of basic human rights.
Shanti Sellz and Daniel Strauss are facing trial in the U.S. Federal Court system for actions that they carried out as a part of a broad coalition of religious workers and concerned public citizens. They followed the published protocol of the No More Deaths movement to the letter. Daniel and Shanti encountered a large group of migrants in the desert, offered food, water, and basic first aid, and then consulted with a trained physician by phone before deciding to transport three of the migrants out of the desert in order to save their lives. Their actions can in no way be described as illegal, because as people of faith we know that it is never illegal to save someone’s life.
The Presbyterian Church (USA) has issued a strong call for a humane and just border policy. Our denomination has been clear that the fundamental issue that causes undocumented migration is a person’s inability to provide for his or her family without leaving their community of origin. Therefore, we call again for economic trade policies that have as their primary commitment a fair and equitable distribution of resources.
We also know that the crisis of thousands of deaths in the desert could come to an end tomorrow if there were a humane, realistic immigration policy in the United States. Therefore, along with many republican and democratic leaders in our government, we call once again for a humane immigration policy that upholds the basic principles for faith-based immigration reform articulated by No More Deaths.
Finally, as long as people continue to die in the desert, our denomination will continue to support people of faith and conscience like Daniel and Shanti who act to save lives on the U.S./Mexico border. These two fine citizens make me proud, and their courageous action should be a challenge to all of us to become directly involved in the efforts to save the lives of the thousands of men, women and children who are taking life-threatening risks to live into a future of hope and possibility.
U.S. Attorney Charlton, I implore you to uphold the ability of the church to fulfill its historic mission by dropping all charges against Shanti Sellz and Daniel Strauss. Please help to affirm the basic democratic principles and values that make the United States a country that is admired by people around the world.
Thank You,
Rick Ufford-Chase,
Moderator, 216th General Assembly, PC(USA)
STATEMENT BY EPISCOPAL BISHOP KIRK SMITH:
I am honored to lend my voice to the choir of voices calling on the United States to drop the criminal charges now pending against two young No More Deaths volunteers, Shanti Sellz and Daniel Strauss. Medically evacuating three very sick migrants, on the advise of a doctor and lawyer, can never be construed as a crime.
We must all be concerned about the larger issue presented by the prosecution of these young people: what is our obligation to our migrant brothers and sisters, children, women, and men who fall into life-threatening distress in our midst.
As Episcopalians we believe in a teaching of love for all persons but particularly love for strangers. Our love is not just some gentle reminder that we should strive to be “nice” people. Jesus challenges us, unequivocally and certainly without regard for a person’s country of origin, to provide food for the hungry, water for the thirsty, clothing for the naked, care for the sick and to welcome the stranger. When these young people were arrested last summer they were following Jesus’ direction to provide food for the hungry, water for the thirsty and care for the sick. They are humanitarians, not criminals; we must all follow their example when we encounter our migrant sisters and brothers in distress. We must never be afraid to welcome and care for the stranger.
In the name of justice and compassion, I ask the United States to dismiss all charges against Shanti Sellz and Daniel Strauss now. Humanitarian aid is never a crime.
MESSAGE FROM TOM JONES, RETIRED JUDGE. 8/13/05:
HARD CASES MAKE BAD LAW
There is a legal maxim that "Hard Cases Make Bad Law." The statute under which Shanti Sellz and Daniel Strauss have been indicted was intended to prosecute the smugglers and "coyotes" who traffic in human cargo and too often abandon them to horrible deaths in the desert. It was never intended to prosecute those who try to prevent those deaths.
One would have hoped that wiser heads would have reached a reasonable agreement, a strict protocol outlined, and charges not filed. These idealistic young people could not reasonably have been expected to agree that they had done anything illegal or immoral. Upon encountering the three migrants they are accused of abetting, they sought medical advice, described the symptoms, and were advised to bring them to Tucson for medical evaluation. When arrested, they were in a clearly marked volunteer vehicle and made no attempt to hide the migrants or evade the Border Patrol.
So now we will have a "show trial" and the jury will have to decide whether there was criminal intent in the transport. Show trials are more about politics then they are about justice: The letter of the law may be strictly applied, while the spirit and intent of the law are trampled. The worst possible result would be felony convictions for two young people who want only to save lives and a decision that would make illegal the simple act of giving food and water to a migrant.
The desperate will always come and the compassionate will always try to save them. Criminalizing the activity will add to the debate but will do nothing to change the social, economic and political dynamics that cause the problems.
The bottom line is that it is unconscionable that people are dying in the desert trying to reach a better life. Let's work on the root causes and not waste time and resources prosecuting the wrong people.
Tom Jones, US Administrative Law Judge (retired)
1007 W. Mountain Stone Drive
Green Valley, AZ 85614
520-393-0005
STATEMENT BY JON SHOWALTER, SEIU ARIZONA LOCAL 5:
November 16th, 2005
My name is Jon Showalter of Local 5 of the Service employees International Union, Arizona’s newest union. SEIU Local 5 stands with its brothers and sisters within the Labor community to denounce the US Attorney’s prosecution of Shanti Sellz and Daniel Strauss. They are guilty of providing aid to human beings forced by unworkable immigration policies to chance death in order to provide for their families.
Mr. Strauss and Ms. Sellz were volunteers in the effort to stem the tide of death in the desert of Arizona. For this they should be honored, not prosecuted. In the course of this effort they rendered aid to immigrants gravely in danger; for this they should be honored, not prosecuted. Upon encountering a medical situation for which they were not qualified to diagnose they obtained advise from qualified medical personnel. For this they should be honored, not prosecuted. And they carried out that advice by transporting these endangered fellow human beings to medical facilities. For this they should be honored, not prosecuted.
The labor community is particularly sensitive to the treatment of immigrants as we are organizations built by immigrants. Whether it be immigrants from central Europe of the 19th century who helped build the railroad and AFL unions, or the immigrants from eastern and southern Europe in the early twentieth century who helped build the CIO and the greatest surge of union membership in history, or today’s immigrants from Central and South America who form the heart of the Service Employees Union. All Americans are indebted to immigrants for we all are immigrants.
In labor’s history we have seen, and see today, our government use selective enforcement and prosecution as a means to deter workers from exercising their legitimate right to form unions. We see the prosecution of Shanti and Daniel as extension of such policies, and ask in the name of decency and humanity that the US Attorney drop these charges and allow these honorable individuals to resume the normal course of their lives, for humanitarian aid is never a crime.
STATEMENT BY REPRESENTATIVE KYRSTEN SINEMA:
Representative Kyrsten Sinema
Arizona State Representative, District 15
602.926.5058
ksinema@azleg.state.az.us
Wednesday, November 30th, 2005
Good morning. Today we stand here together, three weeks before a great event is set to occur. By now, we all know Daniel and Shanti’s story. We know what happened on July 9, 2005, that terribly hot summer day. We know the three migrants who were evacuated to Tucson. We know their blisters, their stomach pain, their fevers. We know about the pain and suffering that they were enduring, and we know the lengths that Daniel, Shanti, and other volunteers went to in order to safely provide emergency medical assistance to them.
We know many things now, almost five months later. We know that people believe in being Good Samaritans, in helping our fellow human beings. We know that border communities, in recognition of the time-honored tradition of helping passers-by, are watching and waiting, afraid that their acts of kindness may be outlawed. We know that leaders throughout the state and country have declared humanitarian aid an act of love, not lawlessness. And we know that Daniel and Shanti have the public’s support. We know that what Daniel and Shanti did was what any of us would have done in their shoes.
But we still don’t know what will happen to Daniel and Shanti. In less than three weeks, they will enter a courtroom and face a jury of their peers. And the jury, those men and women, will be asked to send Daniel and Shanti to federal prison for helping another human being. For saving lives. Because here in Arizona, federal government officials have declared that the very act of saving lives, of providing emergency medical aid and attention, to another human being, is illegal.
When I tell people about Daniel and Shanti, they shake their heads in wonder. “How did our country change so?” they ask. “What has happened here?” And I answer that I do not understand what has happened here, and do not know how these changes have come.
But I do know that we still have the power to change these circumstances. We can stop what is happening. We must. So I call on all of us, in every part of Arizona and around the country, to stand up and say what we all know is true. That helping another human being, a person in need, is an act of love, not a crime. And that no matter what is said or done, we all know that what Daniel and Shanti have done is no more or less than what all of us would have done in the same situation. We cannot turn our backs on those who suffer.
Let us all join together today and renew our pledge to continue helping those in need, to continue lessening the suffering of our fellow human being, to continue saving lives.
STATEMENT BY PAUL NEWMAN, VICE-CHAIRMAN, COCHISE COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS:
STUDENT’S SAVING LIVES ILLEGAL?
One of the most unfortunate outcomes of the federal government’s failed border policy is the gruesome reality of migrant workers losing their lives. They trek through the foreboding heat and treacherous geography of the Chihuahuan and Sonoran deserts along the Arizona/Sonoran borders.
The citizens whom I represent on the border face ambiguous legal and moral decisions should they come to the aid of those migrants who succumb to the heat and treachery of the desert. Though we have been taught to aid the needy with water perhaps some food, our new reality along the border in Arizona is to fear to commit to such moral acts.
Shanti Sellz and Daniel Strauss, two university students, are facing serious felony counts even though they were only trying to save the lives of three migrants they came upon in the desert.
Does the federal government need to make an example of two fine young people making a courageous moral judgment devoid of criminal or malevolent intent? I ask Paul Charlton, our U.S. Attorney, to reconsider his position and drop the charges. Shanti and Daniel were acting out of benevolent consciousness.
Please, Paul, reconsider.
Paul Newman
Vice-Chairman
Supervisor, District 2
Cochise County Board of Supervisors
STATEMENT BY SARAH ROBERTS, RN:
I’m a registered nurse and have been a volunteer with the Samaritans for 4 years and No More Deaths for 2 years. I became a nurse 20 years ago because I wanted to, in some very basic way, help relieve suffering and show compassion.
These past 4 years, I have seen much suffering. People in search of jobs to support their families are being forced to cross through the most dangerous parts of Arizona, the desert, where the temperature was over 100 degrees for 39 days in a row this summer.
Let me tell you a story about a man we found in distress one hot July morning. It was 6:30 am and already approaching 100 degrees; 2 other RNs and I were headed west on Route 86. Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of something red down low in the grass, along the side of the highway, with only enough strength to weakly raise one hand. We stopped and offered medical aid and water.
He had been left behind, was suffering severe abdominal pain, and had been able to just barely drag himself to the side of the road to seek help. He had been walking for 3 days in the desert, drinking contaminated water, brown water from a cattle pond, and had been vomiting.
Two of us were able to help him stand and walk a few steps to the Samaritan vehicle. We learned he was from far south in Mexico and had come in search of work, to be able to afford to feed his children.
This man was in need of immediate medical evacuation; time was essential. We took him to a hospital ER where he received IV fluids and labs were drawn to assess his kidney function; he was found to be severely dehydrated. Surely he would not have survived another day in the desert heat.
This is just one story among many and shows why humanitarian aid should never be a crime. As a member of the medical community, we call on US Attorney Paul Charlton to drop the charges against Shanti Sellz and Daniel Strauss. It is never a crime to relieve suffering or to save a life.
Sarah Roberts, RN
Samaritan and No More Deaths volunteer
STATEMENT BY NORMA PRICE, MD:
I am a retired physician and have been volunteering with Samaritans since its inception in July 2002. We have just experienced our 4th summer of record breaking number of deaths in the desert.
Before I moved to Tucson 8 years ago, I volunteered in clinics treating the indigent and homeless. These people in need of medical care were never asked for any papers or documentation of resident status. Their medical needs were addressed and treated indiscriminately.
As a medical professional I believe not only is it legal to treat anyone in need but that it is my moral and ethical obligation. I cannot sit idly by while 282 human beings are dying in my back yard. If there were a tornado in Southern Arizona, I would be volunteering medical aid; if there were a massive fire or earthquake I would be there volunteering.
The emergency here and now in Southern Arizona is the inexcusable deaths in the desert. 282 known deaths and many more whose bodies will never be found; after a very short time , in extreme environmental conditions the bodies will become decomposed and deteriorated past recognition even as skeletal remains.
We must show compassion to our fellow human beings. This is the message of the parable of The Good Samaritan. The wounded man who had been beaten, robbed and left in the ditch to die was disregarded and neglected by his fellow countrymen. They crossed to the other side of the road rather than acknowledge his need and help him. But a stranger passed by, a Samaritan, who attended to his wounds and medically evacuated him to a safe place for further care.
As medical professionals we have a mandate to render medical care to the suffering. Humanitarian aid is not just saving lives, but also attending to the sick and injured, giving food to the hungry and water to those who thirst.
One does not have to be a medical professional to administer humanitarian aid; even as in the parable of The Good Samaritan, providing medical aid or taking an ill or injured person to a place where they can receive medical care is one’s moral obligation.
Humanitarian aid can never be illegal. Humanitarian aid is the ethical thing to do. It is our duty. We call upon US Attorney Paul Charlton to dismiss criminal charges against Shanti Sellz and Daniel Strauss.
Norma Price, MD
Samaritan and No More Deaths volunteer
STATEMENT BY DANIEL G. GROODY, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY AND ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF THE INSTITUTE FOR LATINO STUDIES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME:
“While civil laws may be necessary for good order, in the end they are not absolute laws. When caring for others is considered a crime—especially caring for the most vulnerable among us—there is something more fundamentally wrong with our society. Obedience to higher laws sometimes comes even at the cost of breaking civil laws.”
STATEMENT BY JOSEPH NEVINS, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF GEOLOGY AND GEOGRAPHY, VASSAR COLLEGE, POUGHKEEPSIE, NEW YORK:
The arrest and prosecution of Shanti Sellz and Daniel Strauss by U.S. authorities is a violation of human rights and an affront to humanitarian principles. Shanti and Daniel, like many other courageous volunteers of No More Deaths, are guilty of saving lives of migrants in great distress. If we accept that this is a crime, then we have turned the basic principles of morality on their head.
Shanti and Daniel are to be applauded for their sacrifice and for their willingness to help those whose lives are threatened, regardless of their immigration status. It is imperative that all people of good will support them and resist the efforts of the United States government to intimidate and block individuals from aiding suffering individuals. Humanitarian assistance can never be a crime.
U.S. immigration enforcement policy is at a dead-end. Washington has spent billions of dollars over the last decade strengthening boundary enforcement. The resulting infusion of resources in the form of personnel, technology and infrastructure over the last decade has transformed the U.S.-Mexico boundary, but it has brought about little else except a great increase in human suffering. Both U.S. government and academic studies have found that, while it is more difficult to enter the country clandestinely, there is no evidence that the boundary build-up has reduced unsanctioned entries. It has, however, led to more deaths along the southern boundary. By conservative estimates, more than 3,600 individuals have perished since 1995, as migrants take ever-greater risks to circumvent the growing enforcement web.
Such failure and tragedy should force U.S. officials and politicians to rethink their entire approach to matters of immigration control, so that it does not treat migrants who are trying to realize their basic human rights as criminals. The bankruptcy of federal enforcement efforts only results in calls for more of the same. Thus, with few exceptions, congressional Republicans and Democrats alike champion ever-more resources for boundary policing. And meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security wastes even more taxpayer money by arresting and prosecuting two individuals who are only guilty of trying to lessen the human suffering resulting from Washington’s failed policies. If there is a crime, it is this.
Joseph Nevins
Assistant Professor
Department of Geology and Geography
Vassar College
Poughkeepsie, New York
jonevins@vassar.edu
845-437-7823
STATEMENT BY THE SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER:
The Southern Poverty Law Center calls upon the U.S. Attorney to dismiss these charges. Prosecuting people for providing the most basic humanitarian assistance is fundamentally wrong.
As a nation, we need to face the facts: immigrants are an integral part of our society. Immigrants area part of the fabric of every community in the nation, increasingly doing the hard work of life—harvesting the crops, washing the dishes, building our houses, working our factories. Every day, each one of us accepts the benefits of their labor. We should also accept the simple responsibility to make sure that people are treated lawfully and fairly while in the U.S.
Immigrants are routinely subject to abuse and exploitation because of their immigrant status. For example, many employers affirmatively prefer to hire immigrants, often undocumented immigrants, in order to assure a compliant, hard-working work force.
Abuse and exploitation of immigrants—in the workplace and at the border—will continue unless we create some mechanism for undocumented immigrants to regularize their status. While many people believe that undocumented immigrants refuse to “play by the rules” (by coming here lawfully and becoming a U.S. citizen), the fact is that our current immigration system provides no realistic mechanism for most poor immigrants to legalize their status.
Our current immigration system is broken. Increased border enforcement has led to the deaths of many people and has not slowed the tide of unauthorized migration to the U.S. It is estimated that more than ten million undocumented immigrants make their home in the U.S., despite dramatic increases in the multi-billion dollar Border Patrol budget. The Border Patrol efforts to crack down in traditional areas of entry have diverted immigrants into the desert and to more dangerous crossing areas, leading to the deaths of thousands of migrants since those policies went into effect.
It does not help to point the finger at immigrants and their advocates. Instead we need stricter enforcement of labor laws. We need to beef up protections for workers where they are very weak. And we need to create a fair immigration system that provides immigrants a real chance to become permanent residents. It certainly does not help to prosecute decent Americans who provide life-saving support to the most vulnerable of immigrants.
Our current system has created a two-tiered society, wherein immigrants are routinely subjected to danger in entering the U.S., dangerous working conditions, and low pay. The solution is not to blame the victims; the solution is to fix the system. Justice demands that the prosecutions of Shanti Sellz and Daniel Strauss be dismissed.
Mary Bauer
Director, Immigrant Justice Project
Southern Poverty Law Center
400 Washington Avenue
Montgomery, Alabama 36104
334-956-8200
334-956-8481 (fax)
mbauer@splcenter.org
STATEMENT BY THE ARIZONA COALITION FOR MIGRANT RIGHTS:
November 23, 2005
The Arizona Coalition for Migrant Rights offers its full endorsement to the Humanitarian Aid is Never a Crime campaign of No More Deaths and we call upon the U.S. government to immediately drop all charges against Shanti Sellz and Daniel Strauss.
We urge the government to consider very carefully the message it is sending to the U.S. public by moving forward with this case. Shanti and Daniel are two young volunteers who, in the middle of the southern Arizona desert, met three men suffering symptoms of extreme dehydration, men who easily could have died. Their actions in offering food, water and attempting to bring these migrants to Tucson for emergency medical treatment speak to the heart of human compassion and morality. The work of humanitarian aid groups such as No More Deaths, and of volunteers such as Shanti and Daniel, prevent the deaths of potentially thousands of men, women, and children each year. By moving forward with this case the government risks not only condemning these migrants to needless death – it risks declaring illegal the basic moral imperative and responsibility of each individual to aid our fellow human beings.
It is not too late for the government to choose not to move forward with this case, but the trial date of December 20th is fast approaching. We strongly urge the U.S. government to immediately reconsider and to drop all charges against Shanti Sellz and Daniel Strauss.
C/o Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project P.O. Box 654 300 S. main St. Florence, AZ 85232
Tel (520) 868-0191 fax (520) 868-0192 email mana@migrantrights.org website www.migrantrights.org
STATEMENT FROM THE:
CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY
December 2nd, 2005
Today the Center for Biological Diversity is proud to add its voice to the hundreds of community leaders and thousands of individuals who have called on the United States to drop charges against Shanti Sellz and Daniel Strauss. Shanti and Daniel are humanitarians, not criminals. Humanitarian aid is never a crime.
On July 9th,. 2005 No More Deaths volunteers rescued three very sick men from the scorching Arizona desert. Lost and alone, with crippling blisters, they were violently ill and dehydrated after drinking the only water they could find – from a tepid, polluted cattle tank. En route to Tucson for medical care they three men were arrested and deported by the U.S. Border Patrol, without receiving any treatment. Shanti and Daniel are now being prosecuted for their rescue.
The month of their arrest, 78 migrants were found dead in Arizona’s deserts – the highest number of any month on record. In 2005 alone, 282 bodies were recovered in southern Arizona, pointing to hundreds of others whose remains are never found – a grim figure in an escalating nightmare. In the midst of this death and suffering, the United States is calling Shanti and Daniel criminal for working to save lives. Such a move ignores the real issues at hand – a failed border policy and the needless suffering it causes.
At the Center we believe that the health and vigor of human societies and the integrity and wildness of the natural environment are closely linked. Indeed the same failed policies that lead to the preventable deaths of hundreds every year also contribute to environmental damage of important wildlife habitat and wildlife corridors.
We believe in the sanctity of all life and we believe what happened on July 9th was wrong. We call on the United States to do the right thing, and cease their prosecution of Daniel Strauss and Shanti Sellz. Together, we must lend our efforts to creating a culture of life on the U.S – Mexico border – a culture that protects all of the members of our community – plant, animal, river, desert, mountain – and human.
Shanti and Daniel deserve our respect and gratitude, not prosecution. Humanitarian aid is never a crime. Mr. Charlton, please drop these charges now.
Sincerely,
Michael Finkelstein
Executive Director
Tucson • Phoenix • San Francisco • San Diego • Los Angeles • Joshua Tree • Pinos Altos • Portland • Washington, DC
P.O. Box 710 Tucson, Arizona 85702 520-623-5252 www.biologicaldiversity.org
STATEMENT BY DAVID HODGES, POLICY DIRECTOR, SKY ISLAND ALLIANCE:
December 5, 2005
Paul K. Charlton
United Sates Attorney
Two Renaissance Square
40 North Central, Suite No. 1200
Phoenix, Arizona 85004-4408
Dear Mr. Charlton,
I would like to add my voice to the hundreds of community leaders and thousands of individuals who have called on the United States to drop charges against Shanti Sellz and Daniel Strauss. Shanti and Daniel are humanitarians, not criminals. Humanitarian aid is never a crime in our country.
On July 9th, 2005 “No More Deaths” volunteers rescued three sick men in obvious distress. These three were extremely ill, dehydrated, and at risk for heat stroke and even death. En route to medical care the three men were arrested by the US Border Patrol. Sellz and Strauss are now being prosecuted for their humanitarian efforts.
During the month of July, 7u8 migrants were found dead along Arizona’s border. 2005 has seen the recovery of 282 bodies in southern Arizona, which makes it likely there are hundreds more who have perished but whose bodies have not been found. It is shocking that the US is prosecuting Sellz and Strauss for attempting to prevent more deaths along out border.
Rather than prosecuting these two the government should be using its resources to develop policies that help rather than inhibit the Mexican economy, while also developing policies that allow for guest workers to travel to this country in a safe and peaceful manner.
I call on the United States to do the right thing and cease its prosecution of Daniel Strauss and Shanti Sellz. These two deserve our gratitude and respect, not prosecution. Humanitarian aid is never a crime. Please drop the charges now. No More Deaths, No Mas Muertes.
Sincerely,
David Hodges
Policy Director
Sky Island Alliance
2134 E. 7th Street
Tucson, AZ 85719
STATEMENT BY DEBORAH MCCULLOUGH, VISUAL ARTIST:
November 2, 2005
For the past two summers, my husband, Ed and I have spent a week camping near Arivaca, AZ. We volunteer with No More Deaths looking for migrants who are left behind, lost or injured in the desert. In this time we’ve met many wonderful, caring people doing this humanitarian work and been impressed by the young men and women who set aside their summers to help.
My husband is a retired geology professor from the University of Arizona and I am an artist. Since august of ’04 my art has dealt exclusively with the issue of death along our border. I walk the washes and trails that the migrants walk and hear the echoes of their weariness, their excitement, anxiety and anticipation. I walk along and pick up pieces of clothing, momentos and photos that were left. I imagine the people as they part with some of those things. I wonder at the sacrifice they are making to help those who are still at home. At the end of the long, hot week, as the dust is washed from my clothes and I return to my daily routine, the memories of those walks stay with me and I am driven to create a piece of art.
This is a work of a spiritual nature for me. It is a way to connect with my moral center. It is a way to reach out and tie my awareness to others who will never walk those trails of see the dirty, strained faces of women and children. I’ve given water to women in custody whose eyes have locked with mine in silent gratitude. And there was a time when I was moved to offer water to a number of women and children in the back of a pick-up truck but the agent refused to let me. Before that truck pulled away I stepped back and tears filled my eyes and the eyes of those women. In Spanish they thanked me and I could only wish them “vaya con dios”.
Shanti Sellz and Daniel Strauss are two humanitarians, who have seen these faces, smelled the dusty clothes, heard stories told with parched throats and offered water to ease the suffering. They are two of hundreds of humanitarians who work for No More Deaths.
I am sad that we must be here today, expending energy to have these charges dropped. I am sad that my art is filled with pain, but I feel my art and my heart are also filled with hope and faith. I hope you will all join me in asking that the charges against Daniel Strauss and Shanti Sellz be dropped, and I have faith in knowing I will never turn aside when I see someone need because HUMANITARIAN AID IS NEVER A CRIME.
Deborah McCullough
mcculla1@cox.net
STATEMENT BY HOWE GELB, MUSICIAN:
THE BALLAD OF THE TUCSON 2
Times often dictate what is deemed right or wrong based upon political spin and its application upon the public.
I am not a political songwriter, only a dabbler in sensible pause. In the future, these song characters may represent the best of us, not only as a country, but even more so as a species.
At the moment, these two young 23 year old volunteers are going up for trial (January 5th 2006) because their presence in the desert actually saved the lives of several migrant workers (a father and son included) that had lost their way here in the sweltering summer heat.
They were out there to alter the death rate under a punishing sun and the desperation that permeates.
They were arrested taking these Mexican nationals for medical attention up to Tucson.
That is the crux.
The fate of these two young heroes is of severe consequence to the future we wish to live in.
-howe gelb
STATEMENT BY LAS ADELITAS:
Las Adelitas (www.lasadelitas.com) is a grassroots organizations made up of progressive individuals united to improve the quality of life foe Latinas and their families through political empowerment.
We believe political change will occur by building bridges between communities, rather than constructing borders that only serve to further discriminate members of our communities who are already socially and economically marginalized and disenfranchised on the basis of sex, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, national origin, race, and citizenship status. We cannot ignore the fact that about a third of all migrants coming to the U.S. to work and be reunited with their families are women. In some estimates, it is about 50%. Many women make the journey accompanied by their small children. In addition to suffering the hostility of an unyielding and ruthless desert trek, women are frequent targets of assaults.
Therefore, the charges brought against Daniel Strauss and Shanti Sellz for what they did in the name of human rights—to medically evacuate migrants in need of medical attention—speaks loudly and critically about our broken border and iniquitous immigration system that continues to victimize migrants, make them criminals, and make criminals of humanitarians who choose to assist them. Instead, we hold the architects of the trade agreements between nations that force men and women to leave their homes in search of opportunities elsewhere be the real criminals. The arrest and indictment of Shanti and Daniel goes against the grain of Samaritan principals that we hold dear. Their actions, had they been exercised in any other place except the border, would be heralded as heroic. We consider the charges brought against these two young people to be no less than an attack on our entire community, our brothers and sisters, our culture, and way of life, and we urge that they be dropped immediately.
STATEMENT BY THE UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST:
Southwest ConferenceANN CALVIN ROGERS-WITTE
4423 N. 24th St., Suite 600Conference Minister
Phoenix, Arizona 85016-5544
Office: (602) 468-3830 * Fax (602) 955-4540
Email: confoffice@uccsouthwest.org
July 11, 2005
People of Faith and Conscience:
On behalf of the United Church of Christ, which has a long tradition of standing in solidarity with the widow, the orphan and the stranger, I wish to speak out in support of the efforts of No More Deaths’ volunteers who offer humanitarian assistance to persons in distress in the desert of Southern Arizona and to decry the arrests of persons performing such vital and life-saving ministry. We understand our Holy Scriptures to give a clear description of how we are to greet, treat and embrace the alien, migrant and neighbor in our midst and that we have a mandate to an emergency response from our church (General Synod 23, 2001) and all sectors of our society in addressing the humanitarian crisis on our border with Mexico.
We have encouraged the people of the United Church of Christ to dedicate their time, talents, and treasures to end the human rights abuses that systematically endanger migrants (General Synod 22, 1999) which aligns us directly with the Faith Based Principles for Immigration Reform, particularly as they address the militarization of the US-Mexico Border. The United Church of Christ, in disbursing Neighbors in Need offering funds to No More Deaths, has clearly spoken on behalf of the wider church in support of the life-saving humanitarian assistance provided by the volunteers working for No More Deaths. Through this offering we express our deep commitment to reaching out and touching our neighbors with justice and compassion (General Synod 22, 1999).
God is still speaking,
Rev. Cally Rogers Witte
Conference Minister
STATEMENT BY DR. EDGAR MCCULLOUGH, FORMER UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA DEAN OF THE FACULTY OF SCIENCE:
Immigration policy is one of the most important issues facing our nation. As with most important issues it is very complex and as with most complex issues reasonable people will disagree on the best solution. The charges against Shanti Sellz and Daniel Strauss are not about immigration policy but how we treat each other as human beings. The United States Government has developed a policy of limiting migrant crossings by building walls and increasing the presence of border guards at the easiest points of crossing. The rationale for this is that by closing off the most accessible areas the migrants will be forced into areas that are very hazardous. These areas are hot with temperatures commonly exceeding 110 degrees F during the summer and are characterized by their lack of water. This creates conditions that lead to the deaths of people attempting to cross. What has been developed is a policy that kills people trying to enter the country illegally.
There are many people however who do not believe that governmental policies should result in the deaths of migrants. To prevent these deaths is not an attempt to break our laws but only an attempt to behave in a humanitarian way. Shanti and Daniel were two No More Deaths volunteers transporting three distressed migrants from Arivaca to Tucson in pursuit of medical aid. They were attempting to provide this medical aid on the advice of trained medical personnel who believed that the migrants were medically endangered. There was no attempt to conceal the migrants and when stopped the volunteers cooperated with the Border Patrol and turned the migrants over to their custody. The Border Patrol arrested Shanti and Daniel and charged them with 1. Transportation in Furtherance of an Illegal Presence in the United States and 2. Conspiracy to Transport in Furtherance of and Illegal Presence in the United States. They are not guilty of either of those charges. Actually the Border Patrol arrested them for providing humanitarian aid. The United States government believes that preventing the deaths of migrants in the desert will encourage more migrants to attempt to enter the United States. If the government wins this case we will be faced with a government-sanctioned policy of killing migrants to enforce out laws.
The trial of Shanti and Daniel is actually a statement on whether we as citizens of the United States will be able to provide humanitarian aid to those in need. No More Deaths does not advocate the breaking of laws of the United States and this act by Shanti and Daniel did not break the laws of the United States. The United States must drop these charges because no laws have been broken. The outcome of these proceedings is important. We as citizens of the United States cannot allow the government to make providing humanitarian aid a crime.
STATEMENT BY DANIEL E. GARVEY, PRESIDENT OF PRESCOTT COLLEGE:
In the complex world in which we live it is often difficult to determine what is right or just action in any situation. Border issues are profoundly difficult and this complexity might lead us to conclude the practice of offering assistance to those who cross borders is similarly complex- but this is not the case. We can disagree and debate ideals related to national sovereignty and the benefits and liabilities concerning borders but there should be no debate regarding our obligation to offer assistance to those in need. There is simply no ethical stance that permits good people a resting place while others die as a result of not following this type of rule. When someone speeds in their car and they’re involved in an accident we don’t withhold services because they were breaking the law. If someone disregarded the safety codes in a community and their house catches fire we wouldn’t see it as proper to allow the occupants to perish in the flames. And yet some may want to debate the need to provide life saving services to individuals who migrate across a national border. By any measure of civility and justice allowing someone to die as a result of this transgression is clearly wrong.
As President of Prescott College I urge all citizens of conscience to support and protect the practice of offering life saving assistance to those who cross our borders. This is not an issue of national security; it is an issue of national character and conscience.
Sincerely,
Daniel E. Garvey, Ph.D.
President • Prescott College • 220 Grove Ave. • Prescott, AZ 86301 • 928.350.4100
STATEMENT BY REVEREND JOHN FIFE, FORMER MODERATOR OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH (USA):
Tucson Citizen
Monday, July 25, 2005
Guest Opinion: We need young volunteers back in desert, saving lives
John Fife
Officials annually promise more agents, helicopters, drones, sensors and walls. It has become another rite of spring in Arizona.
Down in Mississippi in the 1960s, a group of Freedom Riders entered a bus station caf� and sat down at one of the tables. Two were African-Americans, and two were white pastors.
Soon an angry crowd of white residents gathered with baseball bats and two-by-fours in their clenched fists. The sheriff was called and stood by as the Freedom Riders were attacked and brutally beaten.
Arrests were made only after the beatings, and the folks who had tried peaceably to order lunch were charged with trespassing and disturbing the peace.
At the trial, the sheriff was called to testify. The lawyer for the Freedom Riders questioned him something like this:
"Sheriff, did you see these four defendants sitting at the lunch table?"
"Yes, I did."
"Sheriff, did you see them attacked and beaten with baseball bats?"
"Yes, I did."
"Sheriff, did it ever occur to you that you arrested the wrong people?"
That story and that poignant question echoed in my soul as I received a phone call telling me that two volunteers with No More Deaths had been arrested by Border Patrol agents and charged with transporting illegal aliens.
What in the name of all that is right and holy is the government thinking? Here we are in the midst of the longest and deadliest heat wave in recent memory. Here we are in the midst of a death toll of migrants certainly heading for a new record. Here we are in the midst of the indescribable suffering of women and children lost in the Sonoran Desert. And the government decides to bring criminal charges against two college students who volunteered to spend their summer living in that deadly desert, saving as many lives as possible.
Let me tell you the story. July 9, the two volunteers came upon a group of nine migrants in varying degrees of distress. They had been walking for several days, lost in the desert.
The volunteers gave them food and water and cared for their feet, which were raw and bleeding. Three of these migrants reported vomiting, diarrhea, and one reported bloody diarrhea, all classic symptoms of heat exhaustion leading directly to heatstroke and death.
One volunteer reported seeing the sickest migrant vomit four times. After consultation with two physicians and a nurse at a Catholic medical clinic and with legal counsel in Tucson, the decision was made to medically evacuate these persons for treatment by a doctor in Tucson - all according to protocols practiced by Samaritans and No More Deaths for four years.
Daniel Strauss and Shanti Sellz volunteered to take the three migrants to the doctor, and they were arrested on Arivaca Road.
A volunteer doctor and nurse went to the Border Patrol station and asked to examine the migrants. They were turned away, and Border Patrol spokesman Gustavo Soto later said the migrants "were OK."
Ask any physician if they think someone lost for several days in 105-degree heat, with symptoms of vomiting and diarrhea, would be "OK." What if those persons were your family?
Our beloved Sonoran Desert has been turned into a literal valley of the shadow of death in the canyons and arroyos of the borderlands. The stories of anguish and death haunt all of us who hike the arroyos trying to save lives.
Lucrecia was traveling with her 15-year-old son. She came to the U.S. in search of work because her family has done this for generations, her father and his father before him. It was a family tradition: Go north, work for a while, then go home.
She fell ill, began to vomit and then could not walk. Her son sat with her, alone and scared in the scorching Arizona sun, and cradled his mother in his arms until she died.
The Border Patrol deported the boy the next day, alone and grieving. For those of you who have lost your mother, try to imagine that young boy's pain.
Or consider Pablo, a short, thin, indigenous man from
Chia pas. Volunteers with Samaritans found him no longer able to walk. He had lost all the skin on the soles of his feet, a
quarter-inch deep, like raw meat and bleeding.
He told us it was a small price to pay to feed his children. He talked about his children's cries from hunger, their vacant eyes and his great shame that he could not provide for his family. He had never left his village before, but he had no choice but to cross the desert and risk his life in search of work.
I will never forget the face of a young migrant who told me he watched his two friends die: a boy of 15 and a girl of 16. He said they went crazy, running in circles, screaming, crying, tearing their clothes off, grabbing at their skin as if they were covered with red fire ants.
This young boy will never be the same, and neither will those volunteers who heard his story. Every day, migrants tell us they have walked past bodies on their journey through the desert - skeletons strewn about by animals, hands sticking out of the sand, bodies still clutching empty water bottles.
There is a hard truth that all people of conscience and faith in the Arizona borderlands must face. The government and the Border Patrol do not know how to stop this spiraling rate of suffering and death.
For years now, government officials have held their news conferences announcing the Arizona Border Control Initiative - then ABCI II - promising more agents, more helicopters, more drones, more electronic sensors and more walls. It has become another rite of spring in Arizona.
They also promise that all this will reduce the deaths and control the border. Every year, the death toll mounts, and no one pretends the border is under control.
The government should do what truth and decency require under these devastating circumstances. Ask for help!
Elected officials should appeal to all humanitarian aid organizations to bring their skilled volunteers to the desert: the Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, U.N. relief agencies, Samaritans and No More Deaths.
We should be assured that every available resource would be welcomed and encouraged to save lives and tend to the wounded and suffering.
When the Nobel Prize-winning Doctors Without Borders shows up, it also would become abundantly clear why humanitarian aid organizations cannot and never have functioned as an arm of law enforcement or the government.
Second, the government should acknowledge that the current border enforcement strategy has been and continues to be a tragic failure.
U.S. Sen. John McCain has recognized the hard truth and has introduced legislation that points the only rational way to comprehensive immigration reform.
Everyone should join - business and labor, Republicans and Democrats, agriculture and homebuilders, Christians and Jews - and ask the president to vigorously support McCain's legislation.
Meanwhile, the community of Tucson and the borderlands should say to the government immediately, "Drop all the charges against Shanti Sellz and Daniel Strauss. We need them back in the desert saving lives. You really did arrest the wrong people. What, in God's name, were you thinking?"
The Rev. John Fife retired July 15 after more than 35 years with Southside Presbyterian Church.
Article in Mother Jones:
http://www.motherjones.com/news/update/2006/01/immigration.html
Immigration Clampdown
News: Last summer, two aid volunteers saved some desperately ill Mexicans who'd crossed illegally into Arizona. For their troubles they may end up in jail.
By Andrew Gumbel
Photo: AP/Wide World Photos
January 18, 2006
On July 9 last year, a group of eight Mexican migrants made the hazardous journey across the U.S. border into Arizona and, after three days of walking through the blistering desert heat, stumbled into a group of humanitarian aid volunteers near the farming village of Arivaca, about 60 miles southwest of Tucson.
Five of them needed no more than rest, food, water and relatively minor treatment for blisters on their feet before they were on their way again. But the other three were in altogether worse shape. According to several eyewitnesses, they were badly dehydrated and vomiting repeatedly after drinking contaminated water from a cattle trough. One of them, Emil Hidalgo-Solis, later told investigators he was unable to keep anything in his stomach, solid or liquid, and noticed that his diarrhea was streaked with blood.
The aid volunteers, representing a group called No More Deaths, brought the three to their camp in Arivaca and, following standard protocol, discussed the men’s symptoms over the telephone with a registered nurse, who consulted in turn with a physician. Together, they decided the men needed to be brought to Tucson for further examination and treatment.
So far, this was nothing out of the ordinary in a border region where undocumented migrants have lately been crossing—and dying—in record numbers. (More than 280 bodies were recovered from the border region in 2005 alone, up from the previous year, and there is every expectation the number will increase in 2006.) No More Deaths was established in 2002 in direct response to what its members see as a shocking and needless loss of life arising from the inconsistencies and contradictions in U.S. immigration policy. Over the past three years, the group and its dozens of volunteers have established a modus operandi with the Border Patrol permitting it to carry out its mission of distributing food, water, and medical aid more or less unmolested.
But on that day last July something very unusual happened. The two volunteers who drove the sick migrants to Tucson were flagged down by the Border Patrol and arrested along with their charges. According to the Border Patrol, the three men sitting in the back seat of their car were not sick at all—or at least not sick enough for the assistance they received to be regarded as strictly humanitarian in nature.
The volunteers, Daniel Strauss and Shanti Sellz, both 23, were hauled into custody and later indicted on two felony counts carrying a potential sentence of up to 15 years in prison—“transportation in furtherance of an illegal presence in the United States” and “conspiracy to transport in furtherance of an illegal presence in the United States.” In blunter language, they were accused of aiding and abetting a cross-border racket in illegal human smuggling.
The accusation is unprecedented, and has triggered a furor among No More Deaths activists and a growing band of supporters, who see the case as a crucial test of basic human values at a time when immigration is becoming an ever more prominent political issue, and the swelling population of undocumented Mexicans—an estimated 2 million make the crossing each year—is prompting a severe backlash in several border states including Arizona.
For the activists, the charges filed against Strauss and Sellz are an indication that anti-immigrant sentiment is now out of control. “The United States is trying to criminalize the administering of life-saving aid,” said Margo Cowan, a lawyer with No More Deaths who is leading a campaign to exonerate Strauss and Sellz. “We are here to state unequivocally that humanitarian aid is never a crime.”
Barring a last-minute change of heart by the U.S. attorney for Arizona, Sellz and Strauss will stand trial in Tucson in the next two or three months. (The date, originally set for December, has repeatedly been postponed.) For the past several weeks, No More Deaths has convened weekly news conferences at the Southside Presbyterian Church in Tucson—the closest thing the group has to a headquarters—at which religious leaders, lawyers, environmentalists, academics and a former U.S. attorney for southern Arizona have taken turns standing up and condemning their prosecution.
On the other side, U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton has explored various avenues to avoid a trial. Early on, he offered the two defendants a plea deal whereby they would admit their guilt and avoid serving prison time. (They turned him down cold.) More recently, he has been in contact with the No More Deaths leadership to see if they, rather than the two defendants, might be willing to take responsibility for the crimes his office is alleging. One thing Charlton has shown no indication of doing, however, is dropping the charges.
It is far from clear whether Charlton is standing on solid legal ground—many experts who have looked at the charges believe them to be tenuous at best and more than likely, at least under the current statutes, to lead to acquittal. But he has certainly captured the prevailing mood at a time of growing anti-immigrant sentiment across much of the country. A bill sponsored by Wisconsin Republican James Sensenbrenner, the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, would make it a felony offense, not just a violation of immigration law, for foreigners to be present in the United States without the proper papers. The bill, which passed in the House last month and is due shortly before the Senate, would also criminalize anyone rendering assistance to those foreigners—a provision that could well outlaw the entire No More Deaths operation.
Sensenbrenner's is only one of a clutch of new, hard-line proposals. Among other measures being considered by Congress are a fence stretching the full 2000-mile length of the U.S.-Mexican border, from San Diego on the Pacific to Brownsville on the Gulf coast, and a change in rules of U.S. citizenship essentially scrapping the principle, enshrined in the 14th Amendment, that anyone born on U.S. soil has an automatic right to U.S. nationality.
In Arizona, where the passage of Proposition 200 in November 2004 has thrown up barriers to undocumented migrants seeking access to public services, the prosecution of Strauss and Sellz has stirred little public outrage outside a relatively restricted circle of church-based humanitarians with a distinctly anti-authoritarian take on policing the border. Their upcoming trial has been greeted with quiet satisfaction, meanwhile, by the growing number of anti-immigrant groups and would-be vigilantes now setting up operations in the state’s border region. To groups like the Minutemen—and the U.S. Border Patrol, for that matter—cracking down on No More Deaths can only be a good thing because it is one more way of stemming the migratory flow.
“I believe [the volunteers] were aiding and abetting illegal immigration and they were helping those people into the country,” said Glenn Spencer, leader of the well-funded volunteer surveillance group American Patrol, whose house overlooks the border at a remote spot in Cochise County, southeast of Tucson. “We shall see.”
The defendants themselves are more bewildered than alarmed by what is happening. “We don’t know why we were arrested,” said Sellz, a native Iowan who has been coming to Arizona as a volunteer for the past two years. “No volunteers were ever arrested and charged before us, and even after us our volunteers continued to do similar sorts of work.”
According to the defendants’ lawyer, Bill Walker, the case law is entirely on their side. In a 1977 immigration case, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals explicitly stated that transporting migrants for the purposes of medical treatment was not a crime. The defense has also produced two letters in which No More Deaths lays out its policy for offering assistance to migrants in trouble, based on what it says were verbal agreements with the Border Patrol and the U.S. Attorney's office. Both offices were invited to offer comments or objections, but do not appear to have done so.*
Walker said he thought the arrests were principally a matter of incompetence. Humanitarian volunteers had been detained in the past, he said, but were usually released immediately once the circumstances were explained to the arresting officer. On this occasion, though, the arrests occurred on a weekend, and the decision on what do about them fell to a duty attorney who had been working in the border region for just three months. “She validated the arrests and the next thing you know they were charged,” Walker said. “I think they made a terrible mistake and now they feel they can’t back down.” The duty attorney, Irene Feldman, is now the lead prosecutor in the case.
The Border Patrol, naturally, sees things rather differently. At a pre-trial hearing, the chief of the service’s Tucson sector, Michael Nicley, explained that he had introduced an explicit change of policy several months before the arrests requiring church groups and other humanitarian volunteers to inform the Border Patrol any time they wanted to lend assistance to sick migrants. This, he said, was something Sellz and Strauss did not do, and as far as he was concerned they deserved “no special dispensation.”
The U.S. magistrate presiding over the pre-trial proceedings, Judge Bernard P. Velasco, indicated strongly that his sympathies were on the government’s side. It was one thing to offer medical assistance in the desert, he said in a ruling denying a motion to dismiss the charges ahead of trial, but quite another to drive people into a big city. “The issue… is whether the illegal aliens treated at Southside Presbyterian Church and thereafter allowed to melt into Tucson, Arizona, have been assisted ‘in furtherance’ of their illegal entry,” he said. “The answer is yes.”
Whatever the legal justification for such an opinion—something the trial judge will have to decide along with the jury—it certainly marks a sharp departure from even a couple of years ago, when the Border Patrol itself would routinely escort sick migrants to hospital and then allow them to “melt” into the general population. Several hundred new recruits have swelled the Border Patrol ranks since then, in Arizona and elsewhere, and with them has come an unmistakable hardening of attitudes. One of the issues likely to be passionately debated at the trial of Strauss and Sellz is whether the behavior of the new officers is an overzealous interpretation of official policy, or a sign that the policy itself has changed.
In an interview, Sellz gave a gripping account of what she regarded as the shocking mistreatment of migrants apprehended at the border, and the lackadaisical attitude of the officers who acted as their jailers. She said she overheard one Border Patrol officer boasting: “You think we treat them bad in Guantanamo Bay—you should see how we treat them in the Border Patrol.” She said she, Strauss and the men arrested with them were held without food or water for several hours at the Border Patrol’s Tucson headquarters. The migrants were offered no medical assistance.
In the middle of the night, she and Strauss were transferred to a short-term holding facility where she said she had to crawl over the bodies of her fellow detainees to find a space to sleep on the floor. The only food available there were day-old burgers supplied by local fast-food restaurants. “It felt like a prisoner-of-war camp to me,” she said. “I felt appalled that’s the way my country treats people.”
Strauss and Sellz were released as soon as they were arraigned, and two of the migrants arrested with them, a father and son, were deported almost immediately. But the third, Hidalgo-Solis, was held as a material witness in the case and detained for about a month before he, too, was deported. In his deposition, Hidalgo-Solis not only described the precarious medical condition he was in when he was found by No More Deaths. He also said that without them he believed he would not have survived.
*CORRECTION: The second half of this paragraph originally read: "The defense has also produced two letters, one from the Border Patrol and another from an assistant U.S. Attorney, essentially approving No More Deaths’ policy for offering assistance to migrants in trouble." In fact, No More Deaths was the source of the two letters. This was based on information provided by Bill Walker, the volunteers' defense lawyer. We regret the error.
Previous Page
Andrew Gumbel is a U.S. correspondent for the London newspaper The Independent, based in Los Angeles, and the author of the newly published Steal This Vote: Dirty Elections and the Rotten History of Democracy in America. He also writes the award-winning American Babylon column for the alternative Los Angeles weekly LA CityBeat.
Article fromDurango Herald:
http://durangoherald.com/aspbin/article_generation.asp?article_type=news&article_path=/news/06/news060102_3.htm
2 activists' arrests may test humanitarian border aid
January 2, 2006
By Michael Riley
The Denver Post
It lasted only a few minutes. Enough time for a U.S. Border Patrol agent to pull over the beat-up hatchback, determine that the three men in back were illegal immigrants, and take the two young volunteers in front into custody. But that event on an isolated stretch of Arizona highway last summer has made those two activists icons in a national immigration debate.
"We were just doing what we thought was right - working within the law to make a difference," said Daniel Strauss, one of the activists.
Both Strauss and Durangoan Shanti Sellz were arrested by the Border Patrol last July for transporting three illegal immigrants in their car. The two volunteers claim they were taking their sick passengers to see a doctor at a church as part of a humanitarian effort known as No More Deaths, which provides water and medical aid to immigrants crossing the scorching Arizona desert.
But Strauss and Sellz now face felony charges of aiding and abetting illegal entry. A preliminary hearing in the case resumes this week in Tucson, Ariz.
The stakes are high: If they lose, the activists - both in their early 20s - could spend 15 years in a federal penitentiary.
The case foreshadows what could be a much larger fight, if a provision of the border security bill that passed the House of Representatives last month becomes law.
The House bill, expected to go before the Senate in February, would make it a felony to render assistance to any illegal immigrant. Depending on how "assistance" is defined, the bill could make the action of hundreds of church groups, service centers and immigration-advocacy organizations subject to prosecution.
The activists and their defenders believe "humanitarian aid is never a crime" - a slogan heard at dozens of rallies and seen on yard signs all over southern Arizona since the arrests.
But authorities say the volunteers violated a law against transportation of immigrants in furtherance of their unlawful presence in the United States.
"We are going to arrest people for transporting illegal aliens. And these two people simply got caught doing it," said Agent Gustavo Soto, a spokesman for the Border Patrol in the Tucson sector.
Court documents show Strauss and Sellz passed two Border Patrol agents before being pulled over by a third, suggesting that prosecutors may contend that if the immigrants they were carrying really needed help, it was quickly at hand.
"A federal grand jury made up of citizens returned the indictment. The U.S. Attorney's office is moving forward with the prosecution based on what we believe is the right thing to do according to federal law," said Sandy Raynor, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office in Phoenix.
The trial, expected to begin in February or March.
Article from Alternet:
(Included is only one of the five stories stated by the title)
http://www.alternet.org/story/30173/
Five Stories Making the Buzz In 2006
By Rachel Neumann, AlterNet. Posted December 31, 2005.
… 3. Barricading the Border
Now that we've made a mess out of Iraq, it's time to mess up our own borders. Although there's not a single documented case of someone illegally crossing the Mexican-American border into the U.S. and becoming a terrorist (remember those 9/11 hijackers had valid visas), that's no reason not to turn the border into a prison. This coming year will bring a lot of posturing about the border, and also probably a wave of anti-immigrant legislation. A bill recently approved by Congress tightens border enforcement, eases deportations and stiffens sanctions against businesses that hire undocumented immigrants. It calls for a 700-mile-long fence along parts of the U.S.-Mexico border and would convert almost 11 million immigrants into felons. It would penalize anyone -- be they relatives, clergy or good Samaritan -- who helps an undocumented immigrant.
Groups like No More Deaths, an all-volunteer organization with over 2,000 members that helps injured and sick immigrants crossing the border believe the only way to create compassionate immigration reform is to give it a human face. "The current conversation about immigration is based on fear and misunderstanding," says Geoffrey Boyce of No More Deaths. "It's not based on fact, concern about safety, or even really about jobs."
Both conservatives and progressives can agree on one thing: current immigration policy doesn't work. But No More Deaths and The National Coalition for Dignity and Permanent Residency for Immigrants, believe it's immigrants who suffer the most from this policy. "The United States would not exist as it does without immigrants," says Boyce. "Everyone has a personal story to tell that is so different from the image of immigrants you see portrayed by this administration."
….
Opinion of the Tucson Citizen:
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
Tucson Citizen
Our Opinion: More deaths shouldn’t be an option
If a disaster struck Tucson, God forbid, people here would come together to help one another, as we always do.
Yet those helping others now in the nearby epicenter of death are being persecuted and even prosecuted.
Saving lives - even on the border - is not a crime. So federal charges against Shanti Sellz and Daniel Strauss for doing just that should be dropped.
The sanctity of human life is neither a political nor a legal issue, and it must not be diminished by federal officials or anyone else. Indeed, what is desperately needed is a detailed agreement by federal officials and humanitarians specifying precisely what actions may be taken to minimize the death toll in our desert.
Federal officials also should join the humanitarians to decry the deaths and to encourage all people to help one another in life-or-death situations.
Southern Arizona is epicenter of death
More illegal immigrants die in southern Arizona than anywhere else along our 2,000-mile border with Mexico.
Since a federal clamp-down on traditional migration paths in Texas and California years ago, southern Arizona has gotten the most such traffic and the most deaths in our dangerous desert.
The known death toll has risen, from 134 in fiscal 2003, to 221 last year, to at least 279 in the 2005 fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30.
The escalating tragedy has sent doctors, nurses, religious leaders and many more into our deserts to provide food, water and first aid.
The volunteers say they have strict protocols: They do not transport anyone except in dire circumstances, under a doctor’s orders. The transport is made with utmost transparency, in labeled vehicles.
Two may face long prison terms
Now college students Sellz and Strauss face federal trial for doing what a doctor told them to do: Bring three severely dehydrated migrants to Tucson for medical care - leaving six healthier immigrants behind.
The charges of human smuggling could result in prison terms of 15 years. But we cannot imagine such an outcome.
Hundreds of volunteers pour into our region every summer to spend a week or more hiking desolate trails in an effort to save lives.
Few fear arrest. Some know of the 1977 federal ruling that says transport of illegal immigrants for employment or humanitarian purposes is not a crime.
So a public outcry has been raised by varied voices urging Arizona U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton to drop the charges.
Many are asking that charges be dropped
Aside from the “usual suspects” in our humanitarian community, others speaking out on Sellz and Strauss’ behalf include former U.S. Attorney A. Bates Butler III, retired U.S. Administrative Judge Tom Jones, state Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, Amnesty International, American Friends Service Committee and 30,000 assorted pledge signers.
We second the motion that the charges be dropped. But we also urge federal officials to spell out how lives legally may be saved.
Until our elected leaders draft sensible immigration reforms, it is incumbent on us all to ensure that no more die.
Illegal immigration is a crime, yes. But it must not be punishable by death.
Article from the Tucson Citizen:
http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/news/opinion/122005b5_stanton
Tucson Citizen
Opinion
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
Stanton: Migrant rescuers do job because someone must
BILLIE STANTON
The most amazing thing about Shanti Sellz and Daniel Strauss is that they aren't amazing at all.
These college kids - now threatened with up to 15 years in prison - are only two among hundreds of people who tromp loudly through our desert in a quest to save the dying.
But that puts an awfully merry spin on the ordeal, ¿que no? In truth, their work is about as much fun as being dipped in boiling oil.
Their chief work season is summer - the hotter, the better.
The work site is the desolate back country - the most obscure paths imaginable over the roughest terrain, alongside rattlesnakes, drug smugglers and other dangerous miscreants.
Work conditions suck: Carry packs heavy with water, food and first aid kits, trudge miles in the heat and yell out all along the way - lest you stumble unexpectedly upon gun-wielding weirdos - ¡Amigos! ¡Tengo agua y comida! No tengan miedo. (Friends! I have water and food! Have no fear.)
The payoff, almost always, is zilch. Most days, during hours of grueling, thirst- and sweat-inducing hikes, they encounter no one.
Sometimes they sense people hiding in the foliage or tucked behind the next hill. But they search strictly for people who want help; most don't.
Occasionally, illegal immigrants come forward - thirsty, exhausted, devoid of hope. These folks want to undo their whole journey.
And at their request, the volunteers summon Border Patrol agents to escort these uninvited visitors back across the border.
Yet in a migration akin to the flow of immigrants, the volunteers keep coming.
They are college kids who eschew a summer of slurping Coronas in Cancún. Instead they endure grueling conditions on the off-chance they might help someone.
They are rich retirees who can afford adventures in Alaska or Africa. Instead, they steer straight to Arivaca for arduous assignments.
Why do they do this? Because someone must.
Dr. Norma Price hikes many an uneventful mile every summer. But one day, she found an elderly gentleman with a broken leg, deserted in a wash by migrants who had to push on.
Rather than die an agonizing death, he was saved. So Price keeps coming back.
Some days she treats blisters so severe as to seem terminal. Some days she is the sole source of water for exhausted young children and their parents.
Most days, though, it's zilch.
So volunteers must have felt as if they'd hit the jackpot July 9 when they came upon nine illegal immigrants suffering extreme thirst and hunger.
They gave them water and food, then dashed back to the camp near Arivaca for an iced watermelon, grapes and more medical supplies.
Upon close examination, they saw that two of the men and one 17-year-old boy were in dangerous condition - vomiting after each sip of water and suffering bloody diarrhea.
They called a doctor and a nurse in Tucson, who advised that the symptoms required professional attention. Bring them to Tucson, they were told.
Leaving the six healthier migrants, Strauss took the afflicted trio back to camp to start the trip.
By coincidence, Sellz appeared, ready to help, though she had just driven all night from Colorado.
The road trip had hardly gotten under way when a Border Patrol agent stopped them, apprehended the sick men and arrested the college kids from Colorado.
Controversy has erupted over the pending prosecution. Indeed, what will be proved by making a federal case out of one attempt to save three lives?
Sellz and Strauss are two foot soldiers in an enormous army. Destroy their lives, and hundreds of replacements will appear overnight.
All America has been besieged by illegal immigrants - those money-poor but character-rich folks who serve your meals, clean your rooms and dig your ditches so that they might sustain their starving families back home.
That's reality nationwide.
But only in Arizona do we have to watch so many die in our own back yard for pursuing that humblest of all goals - honest work.
Whether the flood of immigrants is the fault of Mexican President Vicente Fox, U.S. President George W. Bush or Congress and its ongoing gutlessness has been debated long and loud.
But while many an American indulges in that blame game, Sellz, Strauss, Price and legions of others just want to stop the deaths.
The question, then, is how compassion can be categorized as crime.
Assistant Editorial Page Editor Billie Stanton's column appears Tuesdays. E-mail bstanton@tucsoncitizen.com, phone 573-4664 or fax 573-4569.
Article from the Arizona Daily Star:
http://www.azstarnet.com/metro/107746.php
Tucson Region
Ernesto Portillo Jr.: Parents proud of two volunteers facing prison for driving migrants
Ernesto Portillo Jr.
Arizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 12.20.2005
As Shanti Sellz and Daniel Strauss await another day in federal court, hundreds of miles away, fretting about the outcome, are the young pair's biggest supporters.
"I'm so proud of my daughter," said Susan Rogusky, Sellz's mother, during a phone interview from her Iowa office.
"We certainly are," said Strauss' mother, Barbara Strauss, from her Manhattan home.
Sellz, 23, and Strauss, 24, are the No More Deaths volunteers facing charges of transporting undocumented immigrants and conspiracy. The pair contend they were driving three undocumented immigrants to Tucson for medical aid.
Last week, attorneys for Sellz and Strauss asked that the charges against their clients be dismissed. Federal Judge Bernardo P. Velasco continued a hearing on the matter until Jan. 5.
The government's prosecution disheartened the parents of Sellz and Strauss.
"They're making it a crime to be kind," said Rogusky, a volunteer coordinator at a senior center in Iowa City, Iowa.
Strauss' mother called the charges "ridiculous."
"As a parent you have to be angry and protective," she said.
The parents are aware of the consequences if Strauss and Sellz are found guilty in federal court. Each faces a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison and up to $500,000 in fines. They don't want to see their children face the prospect of prison.
The parents did not participate in their children's decision to participate in No More Deaths. But they commend their children for standing up for their beliefs.
Strauss grew up in Manhattan as an only child. His was not a very religious family but he attended Hebrew school and had his bar mitzvah, a religious coming of age ceremony, in Israel.
In high school, Strauss began to develop his values, said his mother, a retired social worker. His father is a real estate and corporate attorney.
Strauss attended the Ethical Culture Fieldston School, a school that promotes ethics, community service and academic excellence.
One summer he worked with a maintenance crew on the Appalachian Trail. He also worked in a Bronx soup kitchen. And during college in Colorado, he mentored children, his mother said.
In 2004, Strauss joined the No More Deaths volunteers in the desert and returned this year.
His mother said her son traveled to Arivaca out of compassion for the undocumented immigrants who flee poverty in their home countries and cross the border on foot.
His parents were surprised when he went to Southern Arizona. They were largely unaware of the crisis in the deaths of illegal border crossers.
But they supported him because he was assisting people in need.
Sellz also grew up in in non-religious Jewish home and had a bat mitzvah, said her father, Michael Sellz, who is divorced from Sellz's mother.
Her parents prized volunteerism and caring for others, said her father. The family often talked about life service and "doing something worthwhile for humanity," said Sellz's father, who is studying nursing.
At Iowa City High School, Sellz was on the rowing team and played flute in the school band.
After high school she spent seven months in Ecuador learning Spanish and volunteering in an ecological center. She lived in Montana and in Bisbee before coming to Arivaca last year for the first time.
"We're extremely supportive of what she's trying to do," said Sellz's father. "I see nothing wrong with providing food, water and medical assistance,"
Ernesto Portillo Jr.'s column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Reach him at 573-4242 or at eportillo@azstarnet.com. He appears on "Arizona Illustrated," KUAT-TV Channel 6, at 6:30 p.m. and midnight Fridays.
Community Members Supporting the Principle that Humanitarian Aid is Never a Crime
Labor Groups
A. Philip Randolph Institute of Southern Arizona
Jobs with Justice- Tucson Coalition
Pima Area Labor Federation AFL-CIO
Religion and Labor Network of Austin, Texas
Roofers Union Local 135
Service Employees International Union of AZ
Salt of the Earth Labor Council
UNITE HERE! Local 631 of Arizona
Human Rights and Community Organizations
American Civil Liberties Unions
American Friends Service Committee of Tucson
Amnesty International
Arizona Coalition for Migrants Rights
Arizona Peace Council
Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now ACORN- Arizona
Asylum Program of Southern Arizona
Border Action Network
Casa Maria Catholic Worker
Centro de Investigaciones Económicas y Políticas de Acción Humanitaria (CIEPAC), Chiapas, MX
Christian Peacemaker Team of Douglas
Coalitión de Derechos Humanos/Alianza Indígena Sin Fronteras
Coalition for Latino Political Action
Emigrantes Sin Fronteras, Phoenix
Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project
Food Not Bombs
Fundación México
Healing Our Borders of Douglas
Immigrant Legal Resource Center, San Francisco
Institute of Consulting and Advising of Mexicans Abroad
International Institute of the East Bay, Oakland
Just Coffee
Las Adelitas
League of United Latin American Citizens
Law Office of Emilia Banuelos, Phoenix
Law Office of Jon Eric Garde & Assoc./ Garde & Valasquez P.C., Las Vegas
Los Abogados of the Maricopa County Hispanic Bar Association
Lutheran Social Ministry of the Southwest
Michigan Peace Team
Michigan State University Students for Economic Justice
Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán MECHA, UA Chapter
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People NAACP of Tucson
National Lawyers Guild, UA Chapter
Network of Feminist Student Activists, University of Arizona
Pima County Democratic Executive Committee
Religion and Labor Network of Austin
Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center, Boulder, CO
Samaritans/Samaritanos, Tucson
Southern Poverty Law Center
Tonatierra, Phoenix
Arizona Officials
Bates Butler, Former U.S. District Attorney for Arizona
Ted Downing, Arizona House of Representatives
Jennifer Eckstrom, Mayor of South Tucson
Richard Elias, Pima County Supervisor
Jorge Luis Garcia, Arizona Senate
Martha Garcia, Arizona House of Representatives
Steve Gallardo, Arizona House of Representatives
Adelita Grijalva, Tucson Unified School District
Rep. Raul Grijalva, U.S. House of Representatives
Jose Ibarra, City Council Member of Tucson
Steve Leal, City Council Member of Tucson
Linda Lopez, Arizona House of Representatives
Phil Lopes, Arizona House of Representatives
David Lujan, Arizona House of Representatives
Paul Newman, Cochise County Supervisor
Tom Prezelski, Arizona House of Representatives
Manuel Rojas, City Council Member of South Tucson
Kyrsten Sinema, Arizona House of Representatives
Nina Trasoff, City Council Member of Tucson
Karin Uhlich, City Council Member of Tucson
Ramon Valadez, Pima County Supervisor
Peter Yucupicio, Vice-Chairman, Pascua Yaqui Tribal Council
Medical Professionals
Paul Asek M.D., Arivaca/Three Points
Peter Brown M.D., Tucson
Robert Cairns M.D., Tucson
Tracy Carroll P.T., Tucson
Henry Duke M.D., Anniston, AL
Julia Guillaume R.N., Tucson
Lea Hutchens R.N., Tucson
Diane Lewallen L.P.N., Tucson
Helen Lundgren R.N., Tucson
Ramesh Karra M.D., Tucson
Lisa Kiser R.N., Tucson
Sister Kathleen Mary McCarthy Esq., Senior VP of Missions, Carondelet Health Network
Dalton F. McClelland M.D., Tucson
Nancy Murphy R.N., Tucson
Norma Price M.D., Tucson
Sarah Roberts R.N., Tucson
Carolyn Trowbridge R.N., Tucson
Dan Vicencio M.D., Skokie, IL
Religious Leaders
Reverend Mark S. Adams, Douglas
Reverend Sara Armstrong, Santa Fe, NM
Reverend Jonathan Arnpriester, Tucson
Reverend Neddy Astudillo, Roscoe, IL
Brother Jordan Baxter sj, Silver Spring, MD
Reverend Dr. Christopher Belden, Mountainside, NJ
Reverend Franklyn J. Bergon, Tucson
Reverend Kathryn E. Bradley, Tucson
Reverend Allen Breckenridge, Tucson
Brother David Buer ofm, Tucson
Reverend Sebastine Bula, San Manuel
Reverend Jim Burklo, Sausalito, CA
Reverend Mark Burnham, Los Gatos, CA
Mons. Tomas Cahalane, Tucson
Reverend James R. Campbell, Coolidge
Reverend Robert E. Carney Jr., Tucson
Reverend Mari Castellanos, Washington D.C.
Sister Verona Cleary, Tucson
Rabbi Sam Cohon, Tucson
Reverend Carlos J. Correa, Cleveland, OH
Reverend Allen Cunningham, Tucson
Reverend Steven L. Davis, Phoenix
Reverend David Fife, Bisbee
Reverend John Fife, Tucson
Brian Flagg, Tucson
Reverend Thomas B. Frost ofm, Sells
Sister Noemí Peregrino González, Nogales, Sonora
Reverend Mark S. Gregory, Crystal Lake, IL
Reverend Daniel Groody, Notre Dame, IN
Reverend Lark Hapke, Southwest Conference Minister, United Church of Christ
Reverend James Hobert, Tucson
Reverend Max Hottle ofm, Topawa
Reverend Harold R. Fray Jr., Tucson
Reverend Hans Frick, San Jose, CA
Reverend Jane Fox, Hammonton, NJ
Sister Christina Fuller osf, Evanston, IL
Reverend John B. Giuliani, Redding, CT
Elder Barry Hieb, Tucson
Reverend Theresa Herwynen, Sioux City, IA
Reverend James Hobert, Tucson
Deacon James Hoyt, Scottsdale
Reverend Joseph P. Keenan st, Tucson
Reverend Kenneth Kennon, Tucson
Reverend Richard Kingsley, Tucson
Reverend Wally Ryan Kuroiwa, Cleveland, OH
Reverend Gretchen Larson-Wolbrink, Tucson
Reverend Liam Leahy, Tucson
Reverend Gene Lefebvre, Phoenix
Reverend John R. Long, Tonawanda, NY
Dr. William P. Lytle, Moderator of the 190th General Assembly PC(USA)
Reverend Karen E. MacDonald, Tucson
Reverend James P. Mallon, Tucson
Reverend Gilbert Martinez, Tucson
Reverend Joan Maruskin, Washington D.C.
Reverend John C. Matthew, Sahuarita
Reverend Lee N. May, Tucson
Reverend Randy J. Mayer, Sahuarita
Reverend Gordon K. McBride, Tucson
Sister Kathleen Mary McCarthy Esq., Tucson
Reverend Delle McCormick, Tucson
Joanne McDermott rsm, Rosemont, PA
Reverend Judy A. McKay, Sahuarita
Reverend Steve Melde, Tucson
Reverend Michael W. Meyers, Tucson
Reverend Robert L. Miller, Duarte, CA
Reverend Lee Milligan, Tucson
Father Joseph Mitlong, Oracle
Deacon Ken Mooreland, Tucson
Reverend Joseph Mitlong, Oracle
Reverend Ed Nelson, Tucson
Reverend Briget Nicholson, Tucson
Reverend Robert H. Oldershaw, Evanston, IL
Sister Barbara Pfarr ssnd, Chicago, IL
Reverend Seth Polley, Tucson
Reverend Antonio Alberto Posada, Tucson
Reverend Lois Powell, Cleveland, OH
Reverend Prentice-Leslie, Crystal Lake, IL
Reverend David W. Ragan, Phoenix
Reverend Bill Remmel, Tucson
Reverend Cally Rogers-Witte, Phoenix
Reverend Kathleen Ross, Torrance, CA
Reverend Liana M. Rowe, Phoenix
Reverend Frank Sabatté, Tucson
Reverend Lee Sanky, Tucson
Reverend Mac Schafer, Scottsdale
Reverend David C. Schoen, Cleveland, OH
Reverend John R. Smith, Tucson
Right Reverend Bishop Kirk Smith, Phoenix
Sister Clara Streng, Sells
Reverend Stuart Taylor, Tucson
Reverend Wendy J. Taylor, Pescadero, CA
Reverend Raúl P. Trevizo, Tucson
Rick Ufford-Chase, Moderator of the 216th General Assembly PC(USA)
Sister Anita Valdez, Tucson
Reverend Gonzalo Viegas, Tucson
Rabbi Joseph Weizenbaum, Tucson
James Brandon Wert, M.Div., Tucson
Reverend Sue Westfall, Tucson
Reverend David Wilkinson, Tucson
Reverend John Williamson, Tucson
Deacon Joel M. Ziff, Plymouth Meeting, PA
Religious Institutions
Church of the Painted Hills Christian Outreach Committee, Tucson
Covenant Presbyterian Church, Bisbee
Community Presbyterian Church, Mountainside, NJ
First Congregational United Church of Christ, Tucson
Good Shepherd United Church of Christ, Sahuarita
Grace St. Paul Episcopal Church, Tucson
Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona
Justice and Witness Ministries, United Church of Christ, Cleveland, OH
Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns: Peace, Social Justice & Integrity of Creation
Misioneras de la Eucaristia, Nogales, Sonora, MX
Missionary Servants of the Most Holy Trinity, Silver Spring, MD
Most Holy Trinity Parish, Tucson
Our Mother of Sorrows Catholic Church, Tucson
Pima Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends/Quakers
Presbyterian Church of Los Gatos, CA
Prince Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church, Tucson
Santa Cruz Catholic Church, Tucson
Shadow Rock United Church of Christ, Phoenix
Shalom Mennonite Fellowship, Tucson
Southside Presbyterian Church, Tucson
Southwest Conference of the United Church of Christ
St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Tucson
St. Cyril Catholic Church, Tucson
St. Francis in the Foothills United Methodist Church, Tucson
St. Helen Catholic Church, Oracle
St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church, Tucson
St. Mark Catholic Church, Tucson
St. Mark Presbyterian Church, Tucson
St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church- Tucson
St. Monica Catholic Church, Tucson
St. Paul United Church of Christ, Barrington, IL
Temple Emanu-El, Tucson
United Church of Christ, Pescadero, CA
United Church of Christ, Phoenix
United Church of Christ, Sioux City, IA
Walteria United Methodist Church, Torrance, CA
Westminister Presbyterian Church, Santa Fe, NM
Environmental Organizations
Center for Biological Diversity
Coalition for Sonoran Desert Protection
Defenders of Wildlife
Green Party of Pima County
Sierra Club
Artists
Byrd Baylor
Chango Malo
Antonia Gallegos
Howe Gelb
Michael Hyatt
Valerie James
The Jons
Las Madres Project of Amado
Debbie McCullough
Raging Grannies of Tucson
Richard Shelton
Pancho
Al Perry
Spacefish
Ana Maria Vasquez
Tom Walbank
Ted Warmbrand
Sylvia Woods
Educators
Dr. Dan Garvey, President of Prescott College
Father Daniel G. Groody, Faculty, Notre Dame University
Dr. Edgar McCullough, Professor Emeritus and Former U of A Dean of the Faculty of Science
Joseph Nevins, Dept. of Geology and Geography, Vassar College
Dr. Katherine Noorgard PhD, MsW, Adjunct Professor, U of A
Tucson Preparatory High School
