Dear Readers, If you are in Tucson, please join us tonight for our 4th anniversary celebration!

Also on September 30, I (Todd) will be in conversation with filmmaker Rick Goldsmith after a viewing of his new documentary Stripped for Parts: American Journalism on the Brink. If you are up for a vivacious conversation about the state of journalism today, please come to the Marroney Theater (directly across from the Center for Creative Photography) on the University of Arizona campus in Tucson at 7 pm.

And on October 15, you will have the opportunity to see the prophetic movie Sleep Dealer (check out Tuesday’s podcast with filmmaker Alex Rivera!) on the big screen at the Fox Theater in Tucson as part of the Cinematic Borderlands Film and Conversation Series, presented by the Fox Theater, Cinema Tucsón, Cinema Tropical, Borderlands Cinematic Arts, The Border Chronicle, and other community partners. There will be a Q&A panel after the viewing.

Humanitarian Aid Is Never a Crime: A Podcast with Scott Warren

How did the first Trump administration crack down on providing water and aid for migrants? And what insights we can gain from that now?

In 2019 geographer and humanitarian aid volunteer Scott Warren faced 20 years in prison for doing humanitarian work on the border. After two long trials, a jury acquitted him in November of two felony charges of harboring and one count of conspiracy to harbor. Here, Warren reflects on what happened, giving a detailed account of how he became a humanitarian aid volunteer, what led to his arrest by the Border Patrol, the trial itself, and what he is doing now.

The trial took place during the first Trump administration. Now Warren offers a grounded and insightful perspective on the current situation at the border. We grapple with the question of how to effect real change when, as Warren puts it, “the popular-level consensus in the U.S. seems to be militarize and militarize and militarize no matter what.”

At the same time, he says, the border “is a place that does need peace and healing from the layers and layers of trauma stacked on top of the place, wove into it, and the dispossession of people.”

The Growler Valley on Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge in the vicinity of where Warren and several other No More Deaths volunteers were cited for “abandonment of property” and other misdemeanor charges for putting out water. (Photo by Scott Warren).

What can we do?

For the next year Warren will be pondering just that during a collaborative speaking and discussion series. If you are interested in having him come to your university, organization, or community group, contact him at scottdw1@gmail.com.