Humanitarian volunteer Scott Warren is facing 20 years in prison after being apprehended on January 17, 2018 for assisting the migrant invasion at the U.S. southern border.

Warren, a 36-year-old resident of Ajo, AZ, worked with activist group No More Deaths until his arrest. He was providing water, food and other supplies to help migrants invade the country from his organization’s compound.

He was arrested alongside two illegals, Kristian Perez-Villanueva of El Salvador and Arnaldo Sacaria-Goday of Honduras. He was charged with three counts of harboring illegal aliens and conspiring to do the same. His lawyer maintains that Warren is just a Good Samaritan who should be let off the hook.

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His defense attorney, Gregory Kuykendall, said during a court proceeding that Warren is a “law-abiding, life-giving Good Samaritan,” who “never gave [the migrant men] anything besides basic human kindness.” His parents are also making emotional appeals on their son’s behalf.

“We were crushed to learn that he was facing serious federal charges that could result in his incarceration for many years,” his father, Mark Warren said to a crowd of protesters outside of the U.S. District Courthouse in Tucson.

“We had always been concerned, worried as parents about his work in a dangerous and tumultuous region. We just never imagined that one of the great dangers he faced was from our own government,” he added.

But border security maintains that they are just enforcing the law, and that activists like Warren are aiding lawlessness regardless of how well-intentioned their efforts may be.

U.S. Attorney Nathaniel Walters maintains that Warren’s apprehension “is not about humanitarian aid,” but simply a matter of justice. The court will ultimately decide whether Warren ‘intended to violate the law’ by harboring refugees in the No More Deaths’ base of operations in Ajo referred to as “The Barn.”

U.S. Border Patrol agents John Marquez and Brendan Burns testified in court that they saw illegal aliens Perez-Villanueva and Sacaria-Goday around a gas station. Surveillance video shown to the court seemed to confirm the agents’ testimony.

Burns also claims that Warren was seen showing the illegal aliens how to evade checkpoints. Warren’s defense attorney attempted to smear the border agents as using racial profiling to identify their targets.

“They matched their description? Or they matched the description of two brown people?” the attorney asked.

“In my experience, they were other-than-Mexican… In my mind, these could possibly be them,” Marquez replied.

“You didn’t know anything about them other than, they were not Mexican, isn’t that true?” Kuykendall responded.

At least four other activists with No More Deaths have been prosecuted since 2017 when the Trump administration began cracking down on volunteers assisting the migrant invasion and exacerbating the national emergency on the U.S. southern border.

The trial re-convened today and will continue until a verdict is reached.

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