File – In this Thursday, Feb. 7, 2019, file aerial image released by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, migrants, apprehended after illegally crossing along the U.S.-Mexico border near Lukeville, Ariz., are lined up. Mexico is at the top of the image, beyond the border fence. A border activist charged with helping a pair of migrants with water, food and lodging is set to go on trial in U.S. court in Arizona. Defendant Scott Daniel Warren has argued that his spiritual values compel him to help all people in distress. The trial is scheduled to begin Wednesday, May 29, 2019, in Tucson, with the 36-year-old Warren charged with harboring migrants and conspiring to transport and harbor two Mexican men found with him who were in the U.S. illegally. (U.S. Customs and Border Protection via AP, File)
TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — A federal trial is scheduled to begin in Tucson for a border activist charged with harboring migrants and conspiring to transport and harbor two Mexican men who were in the U.S. illegally.
Scott Daniel Warren says his spiritual values compel him to help all people in distress.
Prosecutors have argued the two migrants — Kristian Perez-Villanueva and Jose Arnaldo Sacaria-Goday — never were in any real distress.
Warren’s parents gathered more than 126,000 online petition signatures asking the court to drop the case, which was to go to trial Wednesday in U.S. District Court.
The 36-year-old Warren was arrested last year when Border Patrol agents found him at a property in Ajo about 40 miles (64 kilometers) north of the border where the two recently-arrived migrants were staying.
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