SAN DIEGO (CNS) - Amnesty International held a news conference and protest in San Diego Tuesday to release its latest report regarding the federal government's treatment of humanitarian aid workers at the U.S.-Mexico border.
The human rights organization's new report is titled "Saving Lives Is Not a Crime: Politically Motivated Legal Harassment of Migrant Human Rights Defenders by the USA." The report will detail the federal government's human rights violations against human rights defenders at the border, according to an Amnesty International press release.
The afternoon protest at the Federal Court Building called on U.S. authorities to stop "targeting human rights defenders at the border, endangering migrants, and asylum seekers in the process," according to an Amnesty International Facebook event page.
Amnesty International has found that the U.S. government has "conducted an unlawful and politically motivated campaign of intimidation, threats, harassment, and criminal investigations against people who defend the human rights of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers ... on the U.S.-Mexico border."
Erika Guevara Rosas, Amnesty International Americas director; Brian Griffey, Amnesty International researcher and report author; Erika Pinheiro, co-director of Al Otro Lado, a tijuana-based legal services provider; and Hugo Castro, a board member at Border Angels attended the news conference.
The events coincided with Tucson prosecutors' announcement today of whether they will prosecute Arizona State University's Dr. Scott Warren for a second time. Warren was volunteering with the humanitarian group No More Deaths when he was arrested by U.S. Border Patrol in Ajo, Arizona, on suspicion of concealing, harboring or shielding two undocumented immigrants in January 2018.
Warren faces felony charges on counts of "harboring illegal aliens" and "conspiracy to transport and harbor illegal aliens," according to court records, and could face up to 20 years in federal prison if convicted. Tuesday's court appearance follows a mistrial on June 11 when two thirds of jurors sought to acquit him.
