Legal Constructions of Sanctuary: Religious Liberty and the Criminalization of Aid at the U.S.-Mexico Border, with Scott Warren

In 2017, the Trump Department of Justice issued guidance for the aggressive enforcement of immigration laws and, at the same time, a general deference to individual religious liberty. Humanitarian aid providers and indigenous land defenders in southern Arizona who were prosecuted as part of that administration's crackdown on immigration and the border successfully used the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) in their defense. Scott Warren was one of the humanitarian aid volunteer defendants who used the RFRA defense. In this presentation he will outline some of the pivotal moments from these prosecutions and the place-based arguments that formed the core of the RFRA defenses used in the Arizona-Mexico borderland during the years 2017-2021.

Scott Warren is a research associate with the Southwest Center at the University of Arizona. Dr. Warren was acquitted of federal charges of harboring two undocumented immigrants.

This event is presented by UCSB's Legal Humanities Initiative, and co-sponsored by the Walter H. Capps Center.