Legal Constructions of Sanctuary, w/ Scott Warren

The Walter H. Capps Center for the Study of Ethics, Religion, and Public Life will co-present “Legal Constructions of Sanctuary: Religious Liberty and the Criminalization of Aid at the U.S.-Mexico Border,” a lecture by humanitarian aid volunteer Scott Warren on October 16, 2025, at 5:00pm at UCSB’s Henley Hall.

This event is free and open to the public. 

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. He was acquitted of federal charges of harboring two undocumented immigrants in 2019. 

This event is presented by the Legal Humanities Initiative, with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and co-sponsored by the Department of Religious Studies and the Walter H. Capps Center for the Study of Ethics, Religion, and Public Life.

 For more information, visit: https://www.cappscenter.ucsb.edu/news/legal-constructions-sanctuary-religious-liberty-and-criminalization-aid-us-mexico-border-scott