Tucson Region

No More Deaths activists to reject plea deal

Saying that saving lives is nothing to feel guilty about, the two border activists facing smuggling-based charges said they will defend their actions in trial and take on the United States. With their attorneys sitting next to them, No More Deaths volunteers Shanti Sellz and Daniel Strauss, both 23, said they would reject a plea offer from the U.S. Attorney's Office to drop the felony transporting charge and go to trial instead. A preliminary hearing in U.S. District Court is scheduled for this afternoon. "Shanti and I are not accepting this plea," Strauss said. Sellz's lawyer, William Walker, said the two rejected the offer because they would be able to successfully show in court that immigration law does not say transporting a border crosser is illegal, only that helping further an illegal entry is illegal. They were unable to provide specific cases they would cite as precedent when asked Thursday. Sellz and Strauss were arrested on July 9 with three illegal entrants in their truck. They were driving them to Southside Presbyterian Church and said the men were vomiting and had bloody diarrhea. In the criminal complaint against them, a Border Patrol agent stated the three illegal entrants were taken to the No More Deaths camp near Arivaca then offered a ride to a church or hospital in Tucson. The agent said they passed two Border Patrol vehicles before they were pulled over. Details of the actual plea offer are still unknown. The U.S. Attorney's Office will make statements only in court, said spokeswoman Sandy Raynor. No More Deaths spokesman Luke Roske said the organization did not have a copy of the plea offer, and he had not seen it. Since the arrests, both sides have accused the other of giving wrong information. That, coupled with what's sure to be a high-profile trial, promises to make this case a rancorous debate on illegal immigration, experts say. On Thursday, Walker said that on at least 50 occasions in the past four years, the Border Patrol knew illegal entrants had been brought to the Southside church for medical help and allowed that to happen. Jose Garza, Border Patrol Tucson Sector spokesman, said that was not true. Last week, the Tucson Sector said the three illegal entrants being transported were not ill and refused medical aid once in custody. In a signed affidavit, the only illegal entrant held as a material witness, Emil Hidalgo Solis, said he was vomiting, had blood in his diarrhea and couldn't go on. He wrote that an agent told him he was fine. The affidavit was signed by Margo Cowan, an activist with No More Deaths. Prosecution, if it comes, may be part of an effort to teach other would-be helpers a lesson, said Mike Albon, spokesman for the Border Patrol union Local 2544. The Border Patrol often arrests people for smuggling small groups, but most arrests in low-end cases are not worth the expense of prosecuting, he said. "I think people are picked up all the time along (Arizona) 286. Sometimes ranchers feel sorry for them," Albon said. Those cases usually aren't worth the bother, he said. "But they probably don't want a bunch of people out in the desert picking people up," he added. A trial will offer a chance for the United States to set ground rules for what can and can't be done in helping illegal entrants, said Jean Rosenbluth, a law professor at the University of Southern California and a federal prosecutor until 2002. "They may be intending to use the opportunity to tell private citizens, 'You don't get to decide when to help an illegal alien,' " Rosenbluth said.