Federal prosecutors in Arizona announced Tuesday that they will seek a retrial in the case of humanitarian aid volunteer Scott Warren, who could face several years in prison for providing food, water, clean clothes, and beds to migrants in the desert.
The move by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona comes after Warren’s first trial ended with a hung jury last month. The Arizona Republic reported Tuesday that “Anna Wright, an assistant U.S. attorney, said in Tucson federal court that the government would dismiss one count of conspiracy to transport or shield, but that they would seek a retrial on two counts of harboring an undocumented immigrant.”
Warren—a 36-year-old college geography instructor—and two undocumented migrants were arrested in January of 2018 after Border Patrol agents set up surveillance outside “The Barn,” a building in the Ajo, Arizona where humanitarian workers provide migrants with water and other essentials. Human rights advocates worldwide have accused the Trump administration of “criminalizing compassion” with the decision to charge Warren with multiple felonies.
The humanitarian group No More Deaths/No Más Muertes, for which Warren is a volunteer, tweeted in response to the retrial announcement that the U.S. government is continuing the “unconscionable prosecution of [an] aid worker in midst of a humanitarian crisis at our border.”
Though the new trial is currently scheduled for later this year, the government reportedly put forward a plea deal on Tuesday that would keep Warren out of prison.
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