No good deed goes unpunished.

As humanitarians, we should care for all human beings regardless of their immigration status. That's a given. However, wildlife refuges should be maintained as pristine sanctuaries for wildlife. Protecting the other species that share this planet with us is important and necessary. My instincts as a humanitarian and an environmentalist and wildlife lover are in conflict.

Of course the solution to this dilemma is immigration reform. We need a system that will make it unnecessary for immigrants and asylum seekers to have to enter restricted wildlife sanctuaries.

The activists were morally innocent, but legally, they broke the law.

boating, bicycling, etc. If they were actually pristine, no human activity would be allowed.

human lives take precedence for me. I do agree the real solution is political but a bit of litter and some tire tracks to save a life is a no brainer.

As Jon Voight says in Runaway Train, after he does something particularly evil and is told that he's an animal:

"No, worse! Human. Human!"

No time to check mentally ill folks buying guns but all the time in the world to use law enforcement and the courts to nail good compassionate people like this ...

I'll never make sense of it

I hope their sentence is a work program ... with the national wildlife refuge folks ... to leave food and water for migrants. I.e. to do what they had been doing, but with appropriate permits this time.

Ok, damn unlikely, but I can dream. But I do wonder if there is a permit that they could have gotten, and if not, lawyer up and challenge the system that denied it.

Let it be, let it be, let it be.

zero dollars and zero time served, with their records expunged at no cost to them. It worked for racist murderers in AL and MS state courts in the 60's. Why not humanitarians in Arizona?

The Intercept.com
December 21, 2018

"Attorneys for a border-based humanitarian aid volunteer facing two decades in prison are calling for the removal of the magistrate judge in the case after learning that the judge engaged in secret communications with Trump administration prosecutors.."
https://theintercept.com/2018/12/21/no-more-deaths-judge-secret-talks-trump-prosecutors/



K&R, thanks for posting

Unfortunately, (and I know you already know this) but it is not about right and wrong, it is about the judge and who is in front of that judge. Law and order, my a$$! Someone should publish a dictionary or thesaurus on how to interpret conservative or republican slogans like

Law and order = corruption for conservatives and against liberals
Tax and spend = taxing the strongest part of the tax base to benefit the country as a whole
Cut entitlements/welfare = taking money from minorities and the elderly
Prolife = removing women's health related decisions and killing felonious minorities and mentally incapable
Equality = White males are more equal than everyone else
Melting pot/nation of immigrants = White people stealing land from non whites and keeping the brown ones out
Everyone has a right to vote = Every white male republican has a right to vote


P.S. Loads of love to Rowan Atkinson