Leaving Water Jugs in Desert along Arizona-Mexico
"Humanitarian Aid Is Not a Crime" - Activist Fights Littering Charge for Leaving Water Jugs in Desert along Arizona-Mexico Border
The Sonora Desert along the Arizona-Mexico border is a deadly place. Over the past decade, nearly 2,000 men, women and children died while trying to cross the border into Arizona. Dan Millis is a volunteer with the humanitarian and advocacy organization No More Deaths. In February of 2008, he found the body of a fourteen-year-old girl from El Salvador in the southern Arizona desert. Two days later, as he was leaving gallon-sized sealed jugs of water along the same migrant trails, he was ticketed for littering by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. He refused to pay the $175 fine and fought the littering ticket misdemeanor charge on the grounds that humanitarian aid is not a crime. Ref. Source 4