Man Faces Jail for Giving Immigrants Water

(AP)  A judge has threatened to sentence a Tucson man to 25 days in prison for leaving jugs of water in the desert for illegal immigrants.

A federal jury in June convicted Walt Staton of littering in the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge.

In August, a judge ordered Staton to pick up trash for 300 hours and also sentenced him to a year of unsupervised probation and banned him from the refuge for a year.

Staton is a member of the group No More Deaths, which supports humanitarian aid along the border.

He was scheduled to be re-sentenced Friday after he told the U.S. magistrate last month that he objected to the court's punishment on moral and legal grounds.

But Magistrate Jennifer Guerin denied Staton's motion to modify or suspend his sentence pending appeal and threatened to double his community service hours to 600 hours or give him 25 days in prison.

Guerin has scheduled a probation violation hearing for Dec. 21.

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On the Web

No More Deaths: http://www.nomoredeaths.org/

[Drayluz]

We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was "legal" and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was "illegal." It was "illegal" to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler's Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers. If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country's antireligious laws. Martin Luther King

[unc66]

Wonder what CBS News would report if he had left food and water in the desert to aid a known and wanted child molester who was evading the police?

[Hoyden2894]

Wow! Wonderful bit of sensationalistic reporting here. Now let's examine both sides of the story before coming to a conclusion, shall we?

Staton DID in fact break the law by leaving jugs of water (littered, disposed or dumped garbage) in the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Preserve which is in violation of Title 50, Code of Federal Regulations, Section 27.94(a); and Title 16, United States Code 668dd(f)( 1).

It is very clear by his own admission to the court, statements that he made to the media & the press that Walter Staton not only knowingly violated the law, he has admitted to violating a court order prohibiting him from entering the Refuge.

While everyone is concerned about the humanitarian angle of this story, you are forgetting the environmental impact that the THOUSANDS (yes, THOUSANDS) of discarded plastic bottles has had & will have on wildlife and vegetation of the Refuge. Animals looking for water will try to chew open the plastic jugs, ingesting plastic which has the potential to cause perforations as it?s digested. Paws, hooves, muzzles & antlers can become entangled in the plastic which can incapacitate the animals in any number of ways. Water jugs packed together will choke out vegetation.

A review of the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge website revealed that Humane Borders has been issued a permit for Humanitarian Aid Stations & 65 gallon mobile water stations. There is ?more water per acre on the Refuge than on any other comparable land mass on the southern Arizona border? with more to come, so leaving water jugs & polluting the environment is unnecessary.

Quite frankly, I think that Walter Staton is VERY lucky that he was not charged with a felony under the Federal Immigration and Nationality Act after he admitted that he intentionally left water jugs along West Arivaca Road in the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge for the consumption by illegal immigrants, which would enable them to gain further access into the country.

Under Section 274 of the federal Immigration and Nationality Act, INA 274A(a)(1)(A): A person (including a group of persons, business, organization or local government) commits a federal felony when he:

- assists an alien whom he should reasonably know is illegally in the U.S. or who lacks employment authorization, by transporting, sheltering, or assisting him to obtain employment,

- encourages that alien to remain in the U.S., by referring him to an employer, by acting as employer or agent for an employer in any way, or

- KNOWINGLY ASSISTS ILLEGAL ALIENS DUE TO PERSONAL CONVICTIONS

Penalties upon conviction include criminal fines, imprisonment, and forfeiture of vehicles and real property used to commit the crime.

After reviewing the all the court documents, the background of the No More Deaths Group, statements & documents on the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge website, I am of the opinion that this is just a media stunt for publicity utilizing the humanitarian aid angle & that Walter Staton is has intentionally violated the law & his probation by refusing to comply with the court order.

[family2010]

I see two issues here. The first is that a defendant should not be penalized for seeking to appeal either the conviction or the conditions of the sentence. It sounds, evidently, like this person is not being represented. The second issue is whether the defendant actually "littered." The usual definition of littering involves the indiscriminate abandonment of an unwanted item, such as a cigarette butt or a beer can. Water, especially in a desert setting, is the opposite of that. --SJR

[ToolMangler1]

If I came across a dying person in the desert, I would give them water and food, I would then call the Border patrol to come and get them. I will not allow a person to suffer if I can help, neither will I aid them in breaking mthe law.
If this 'Walt Staton' wanted to do justice to all, he would scour the deserts for dying illegals, give them life saving water then stay with them until the Border patrol picked them up...
Anything else is a criminal act against the citizens of this country.

[P0STING_AWAY]

Let us all work to get all illegal mexicans deported as soon as possible.

[billards53]

Charity begins at home . Mr Staton was aiding and abetting people who entered this country illegally .I have traveled to foreign countries but always entered them legally . What part of the term illegal alien don't you understand sir .

[Phxfire]

People of compassion should be able to legally provide water for ANY AND ALL who need it or would die. Nothing says they support illegal immigration, but it does show they have the compassion for human beings desparate for something better. Children, who aren't 'illegal', who had no choice, are some of the victims.
Based on many comments its obvious most of you are completely clueless of the conditions, and who the victims are, in crossing these desert areas. What's wrong with saving lives and then having ICE get involved?

[Overruled1]

Leaving jugs of water in a desert is not pollution.
It's life saving equipement.
I think this could be the start of something more important than saving lives of illegal immigrants desperate in the desert.
If we could arrange to leave in place marked locations in the deserts of America, emergency rations of water and food, they could be used to save lives of americans lost in the deserts. I'm pretty sure rangers use them.
They don't call them litter.

[wkiernan2]

I'll take what you anti-immigrant types say seriously the day I see you supporting legislation to jail the profiteering employers of the millions of illegal workers in the U.S.A. today.

Until then I will assume that a.) you are merely a bunch of spiteful bigots, and b.) at the same time you are in favor of pushing the wages of legal American citizens down, down, down by forcing them to compete, wage-wise, with undocumented immigrants who do not dare to complain to the government about sub-minimum-wage pay and illegal working conditions.