Yesterday, four volunteers with No More Deaths/No Más Muertes went to federal court in Tucson, Arizona to defend their right to bring water, food, and basic medical aid to migrants crossing into the United States.
These charges are a direct attack on No More Deaths/No Más Muertes — and their ability to mitigate the direct effects of the humanitarian crisis perpetuated by the United States’ racist border and (long standing) economic policies. They also show yet another way Trump seeks to criminalize brown bodies and perpetuate truly vicious acts against people who are in the most need of aid and refuge.
These charges have interrupted and criminalized the important work of No More Deaths. A total of eight people were arrested delivering water to paths traveled by migrants in a southern Arizona wilderness area — and in the middle of the militarized border zone. They’re being charged with crimes related to wildlife refuge restrictions. A ninth arrest, of No More Deaths volunteer Scott Warren, resulted in felony charges related to providing humanitarian aid to migrants.
Since 2004, this group has been delivering humanitarian aid to migrants in the Arizona desert — where so many people die or are brutalized, detained, and separated from their family by border patrol.
Now No More Deaths/No Más Muertes needs your help to drop the bullshit charges against them.
We know that the flow of migrants is only likely to accelerate as the climate crisis gets worse. In the next fifty years, many of the places will become uninhabitable and tens of millions will likely be forced to look for new homes. We also know that climate change is itself a product of deeper economic and social systems of oppression based on the economic interests of industrialized nations. That’s why we need groups like No More Deaths/No Mas Muertes to create avenues for mutual aid to flow to those who are left out, persecuted, and killed by the state.
No More Deaths/No Más Muertes has been a radical ally of Rising Tide for years, and any support or attention we can draw to their work is helpful. Please follow their efforts and the ongoing legal challenges, donate if you are able and volunteer if you can.
We denounce the racist weaponization of the Wilderness Act against humanitarian aid workers to reinforce an agenda of indigenous erasure and settler-colonialist notions of ecological purity.