More than 30 Border Patrol agents entered a camp of the No More Deaths migrant aid group on Tuesday, June 13, 2017.
More than 30 border patrol agents surrounded the campsite of No More Deaths near Arivaca at sunset on Thursday, June 15. With a warrant in hand, agents entered the camp, encountering resistance from aid workers.
Eva Lewis, a longtime volunteer at the aid camp, said the humanitarian aid group reached an agreement with Border Patrol in 2013 that their agents would respect the camp as a safe zone and would not enter looking to make arrests of those who may be in the country illegally.
“In those agreements Border Patrol had agreed to respect humanitarian aid", said Lewis, “and respect our work, which is happening under the Red Cross code of conduct for humanitarian relief organizations.”
But Border Patrol spokesperson Daniel Hernandez said there is no such written agreement and was unaware of a verbal one.
“Everything that we do is lawful and we always error on the side of caution as our agents are patrolling that area, the Arivaca area. They are cognizant of the camp and that there are people there, but we still must do our jobs."
The agents arrested four people. All, according to Border Patrol, were suspected of being in the U.S. illegally. Two were found to have past criminal records in the U.S. and the other two were rendered additional medical care by agents, Hernandez said.
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