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The volunteers with Tucson-based No More Deaths faced misdemeanor charges connected to driving on the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge in July 2017 in search of three people reported missing during a border-crossing attempt, according to records at U.S. District Court in Tucson. 

Caitlin Deighan was accused of driving in a wilderness area. She and Zoe Anderson, Logan Hollarsmith and Rebecca Grossman-Reicheimer also faced charges of entering a wilderness area without a permit, according to a Dec. 6, 2017 charging document.

After the charges were dropped Thursday, the volunteers were issued civil infractions carrying a $250 fine each, No More Deaths said in a news release. 

The U.S. Attorney's Office could not be reached, but the court docket says "the Government indicates that an agreement has been reached to settle this matter via the defendants' payment of a collateral forfeiture."

Based on that agreement, a hearing will be held March 4, according to the docket. "At the Government's request, that hearing will remain scheduled to allow a brief record to be made regarding the agreement."

The decision to drop the charges came a month after four other No More Deaths volunteers were convicted of misdemeanor charges connected to leaving food and water in the wildlife refuge.

“Today might be a victory for No More Deaths, but people continue to die and disappear every day in the desert,� Hollarsmith said in the news release. “Our hearts remain with the families of the disappeared. As long as border policy funnels migrants into the most remote corridors of the desert, the need for a humanitarian response will continue.�

Lawyers for Deighan and her co-defendants had asked the court to dismiss the charges because the volunteers were acting out of necessity in a life-or-death situation.

A woman in Phoenix called a No More Deaths hotline and said two of her cousins and a friend were lost near Growler Valley, an area of the wildlife refuge where many remains of migrants have been found, according to court records. 

The volunteers called the Border Patrol, but agents didn’t respond for hours, their lawyers said. The volunteers went to the wildlife refuge to find the border-crossers and the Border Patrol later sent a helicopter. One of the lost men was never found.

Last month, Natalie Hoffman was convicted of operating a motor vehicle in a wilderness area. Hoffman and Oona Holcomb, Madeline Huse and Zaachila Orozco McCormick were convicted of entering a national wildlife refuge without a permit and abandoning property there.

They are scheduled to be sentenced March 1. 

Another volunteer, Scott Warren, faces similar charges for aid efforts on the refuge in June 2017. He also faces a felony human-smuggling charge after Border Patrol agents found two men who crossed the border illegally in January at an aid building in Ajo. Warren is accused of harboring them during an illegal border-crossing attempt.

The trials in each of Warren's cases are scheduled to start in May.