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Arizona border activist going on trial for helping migrants

Posted at 10:19 AM, May 28, 2019
and last updated 2019-05-28 13:19:33-04

PHOENIX (AP) — 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 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.

Thousands of migrants have died crossing the border since the mid-1990s when heightened enforcement pushed traffic into Arizona's scorching deserts.

Prosecutors say the two migrants aided by Warren were never in any real distress.