Some quick context:
No More Deaths is a Tucson-based umbrella organization that offers
humanitarian aid, i.e. transportation to medical facilities, to
migrants crossing through Arizona's southern deserts. NMD's policy
dictates that those migrants receiving aid are physically incapable of
continuing their trek.
Shanti Sellz:
You might have read about her: a won't-back-down woman of conviction.
Along with Daniel Strauss, she is the unexpected figurehead of a
movement for migrant (read: human) rights.
Stanley Feldman:
Feldman is the newest development in the NMD/Shanti/Daniel case. The
whole she-bang is centered around the criminality of humanitarian aid.
Sometime in the last two years the reading of immigration law
changed: unlike before, when Border Patrol agents might have pulled
over but arrested en route NMD volunteers, now it's apparently become
a federal, some say newly enforced, offence.
Feldman enters the scene as a fresh-faced counsel for Shanti and
Daniel. He is a retired federal magistrate judge--one of the former
head honchos in Tucson-area immigration courts. He's hopped on the
case in ardent denunciation of the charges brought up against Daniel
and Shanti.
Let's consider this guy a man in the know: for years, he's supported
the actions of NMD volunteers as legal. His role as counsel bumps
Shanti and Daniel's current lawyer to the level of witness: he was the
dude who, under NMD protocol, verified gave his stamp of approval on
his clients' actions on the actual day of their arrest.
Front and center in this case are two issues: humanitarian aid and the
shifting perception of legislature. Come the date of the trial, it's
going to be pretty damn interesting to see what wins out. Stayed
tuned to the twenty-fifth.
--
www.border101.org
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