An Arizona activist on Wednesday was accused of breaking US law by guiding migrants who crossed the US-Mexico border illegally.
Scott Warren, 37, was appearing in his second trial this year after a Tucson jury was unable to reach a verdict in June on whether he broke the law by giving food, water and shelter to two migrants.
The split jury reflected divisions in public opinion on how the US should treat illegal migrants after US President Donald Trump made tougher immigration law enforcement a policy priority.
“I believe he was showing them how to go further north into the US,” US Border Patrol agent Brendan Burns, assigned to investigate groups suspected of human trafficking, told a Tucson jury.
Burns and his partner, John Marquez, on Jan. 17 last year set up surveillance of a structure in Ajo, Arizona, used as an operating base by Warren’s humanitarian group No More Deaths, which leaves water in Arizona’s deserts for migrants.
Burns saw Warren walk outside the building with the two men and gesture to a distant mountain range he said was used as a landmark by migrants to walk through the desert and evade US Border Patrol agents.
Assistant US Attorney Anna Wright in opening statements on Tuesday said that Warren allowed the men to stay at the building for four days.
“This case is about what Warren did to help two men continue their illegal journey,” Wright said.
Defense attorney Greg Kuykendall said Warren acted within his legal rights to give humanitarian aid to people crossing deserts, where more than 3,000 migrants have died since 2001, according to Pima County data.
Warren is “nothing more or less than a good Samaritan,” he said.
Warren was indicted after then-US attorney general Jeff Sessions instructed prosecutors to prioritize cases involving the harboring of migrants. He could spend nearly 20 years in prison if convicted on all counts.
His first trial veered into politics, with jurors reading an opinion piece by Warren in which he warned his conviction could allow Trump to expand prosecutions for harboring migrants.
US District Judge Raner Collins on Tuesday granted a prosecution request to forbid Warren and his lawyers from mentioning Trump, or his policies, during the second trial.
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