Border Samaritans Cleared
College students Shanti Sellz and Daniel Strauss volunteered with a Southern Arizona group called No More Deaths. Over the years NMD and the Border Patrol had worked out a "protocol" detailing what humanitarian actions civilian border samaritans could take without risking prosecution for alien smuggling.
In July 2005 Sellz and Strauss encountered severely dehydrated migrants north of the border. As Sellz and Strauss rushed the migrants to a Tucson hospital, they were arrested and eventually charged with alien smuggling.
Refusing a plea bargain, the pair readied for trial. But on September 1st, U.S. District Judge Raner C. Collins dismissed the charges, holding the government had led the defendants to believe their actions were legal.
NMD is holding a press conference in Tucson today.