Suleika Acosta, KOLD News 13 Reporter

Daniel Millis and volunteers from the group, No More Deaths, often leave jugs of water in the desert for illegal immigrants who are crossing.

"Migrants come by, they either pick it up and drink it and leave the bottle or they take it with them."

Last week the group found the body of a 14-year-old girl from El Salvador. Missing since January, Joseline was left behind by her group when she became too sick to continue.

"This is our home, we don't want people to die in our backyards."

But Daniel and other humanitarian workers were leaving water and picking up trash when officers with the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge told them they were breaking the law.

"We consider the action they did was littering so we're not going to authorize littering on the wildlife refuge," says Refuge Manager Sally Gall.

Officers gave Daniel a $175 citation and if he doesn't pay the ticket, he could face jail time and a hefty fine.

Gall says the water jugs are not the solution, but part of the problem.

"I understand that they are trying to help immigrants that are out there but by placing water jugs along the trail refuge, it is littering and we don't want to encourage littering. We have a tremendous problem with littering because of immigration problems."

Gall says immigrants leave several tons of trash in their path, a potential threat to the wildlife they are working to preserve. Another humanitarian organization maintains three water beacons for immigrants but Daniel says it's not enough.

He shows us the discarded jugs they've collected, among them Daniel finds a message from someone who chose to leave the litter behind, but for a different reason.

"We feel that this border policy is resulting in a lot of needless suffering and deaths in the desert and so we're going to continue with our humanitarian aide and efforts until there are no more deaths," adds Daniel.