It’s great to know that leaving water for people dying in the desert is being punished, “knowingly leaving poison in drinking water” or “knowingly slashing drinking water jugs so that dying people can not get life saving water” is not.

via democracy now!

In Arizona, a human rights activist from the group No More Deaths has been convicted for leaving plastic jugs for undocumented immigrants crossing near the US-Mexico border. The activist, Walt Staton, says the water jugs were left to prevent migrants from dying of dehydration. On Wednesday, Staton was found guilty of ‘knowingly littering’ in the Buenos Aires Wildlife Refuge. In a move criticized by defense attorneys, the jury was ordered to reach a verdict after initial deliberations ended in a deadlock. Staton is a member of No More Deaths, which has worked for years to provide migrants with humanitarian aid. Over the past decade, nearly 2,000 men, women and children have died while trying to cross the border into Arizona. In a statement, No More Deaths said: “By penalizing life-saving work, the United States is showing callous disregard for the lives of our neighbors to the south, whose only crime is to seek a better life.”

I personally don’t care if people are coming here to burn tires, for fucks sake, you don’t imprison somebody for trying to save lives. I mean, weren’t we all just subjected to weeks and weeks of news coverage about the mother that supposedly tried to keep her son from getting cancer treatment? And weren’t we all supposed to be mad at her because she was denying the opportunity of life to her son?

What’s the difference here? Why are we punishing somebody for bringing others the opportunity of life?

Is it because the people being given the opportunity for life are *brown*? Or “illegal?”

Does being “illegal” make you “not human” anymore?