Can providing humanitarian aid be illegal? A troubling case from the US-Mexico border
In 1994, a Clinton administration initiative forced migrants to take deadlier routes through the Sonoran Desert to cross from Mexico into Arizona. Starting in 2016, the Trump administration pursued even more intense policing measures at the border, resulting in the arrests of volunteers who provided food, water and shelter to migrants. The short documentary USA v Scott chronicles how, in 2018, a geography professor and volunteer humanitarian aid worker named Scott Warren was arrested under a law that had previously been used to target smugglers, and faced the potential of a 20-year prison sentence. Following Scott as he continues to help migrants while preparing for his trial, the film ponders the boundaries between country and country, and law and morality.
Directors: Ora DeKornfeld, Isabel Castro
Producers: Marie-Hélène Carleton, Micah Garen
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