Topic
In 2017 border humanitarian aid volunteers were charged with the misdemeanor crime of “abandonment of property” for leaving water for migrants in the Growler Valley west of Ajo. Separately, Scott Warren and two young men from Central America were arrested by the U.S. Border Patrol in early 2018. As a result of this arrest Scott was charged with with the felony crime of “harboring aliens,” for having offered these two young men “food, water, clean clothes, and beds” in his role as a volunteer with the group No More Deaths.
Ajo and nearby areas have long been a site of intense border and immigration enforcement. During the years 2017-2020 dozens of people, including volunteers offering humanitarian aid to migrants, advocates giving support to asylum seekers, and land defenders protesting border wall construction on traditional Indigenous O’odham land, faced targeting and surveillance. Some also faced criminal charges. A number of federal trials and lawsuits were the result, in which questions related to speech, protest, advocacy, aid, land, constitutional rights, and spirituality framed the fight between prosecution and defense.
In this series Scott shares his experience as a volunteer, academic geographer, and defendant during the years 2017-2020. The observations and lessons learned from this earlier time offer perspective on our current time, as we find ourselves once again in a moment of expansive targeting, surveillance, and criminalization of humanitarian aid, advocacy, and speech.
Curriculum
The series explores key themes of the federal trials in which I (Scott Warren) was a defendant. Those themes are roughly organized into content areas, including: the role of spirituality and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, border land management and land tenure issues, the “state of exception” and the legal regime at the border, a history of border humanitarian aid, a history of the so-called harboring law, the economic transformation of the region and the growth of the border security industry, and the evolution of the defense team’s arguments and approach over the course of two felony trials. See curriculum page for details.
Logistics
I am available to do public talks, host workshops, facilitate discussions, give guest lectures, teach short courses, offer field experiences, contribute to panel discussions, and other kinds of engagements.
Bring me to your university campus, academic department, NGO, community group, or organization. Or, come visit Ajo and the border region and I will work with your class, group, or organization here. We can tailor the curriculum and the back-and-forth engagement in a way that benefits your group, compliments your learning experience, and supports the work you are already doing. A visit could be for part of a day, for a couple of days, or perhaps longer, depending on the type of our collaboration. I would be delighted to learn about the work you are doing, and ways we might support one another.
I offer this series on a sliding scale, appropriate to the budget of your organization and the extent of our collaboration. Please do reach out even if you have no funding.
Use the contact form on this website to inquire, or email me at scott@scottwarrengeography.com.
I am looking forward to hearing from you!
Scott Warren Geography 