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 can offer a grounded 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.”

What can we do? 

For the next year Warren will be pondering just that in 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.