Despite fears from family and friends their criminal charges would keep them south of the border, two Prince George students are back home.
Nicole Schafenacker and Katriona Siloen Auerbach are facing the prospect of crossing that border again to answer to three charges handed out to more than 100 in a mass arrest a week ago in North Dakota.
The UNBC graduate students are each charged with conspiracy to endanger by fire or explosion, engaging in a riot and maintaining a public nuisance, like most protesters arrested on Oct. 27, Schafenacker confirmed.
They had made the trip a week before to protest the Dakota Access pipeline, a $3.8-billion, four-state project designed to carry oil from North Dakota to Illinois, but were arrested last Thursday and spent three days in jail, before released on Saturday.
A Morton County Sheriff Department spokesperson said most of the 141 arrested were charged with the same three offences.
Schafenacker said they will get legal counsel before deciding whether to talk to media.
Earlier this week as their professor Sarah de Leeuw worried whether they would make it home, she said allegations of conspiracy - a felony - were especially concerning.
"These are two women from Prince George, let's not forget that. They got in their vehicles, they drove to the Dakotas in order to enact a heart full of good intentions," she said. "These weren't women who were somehow criminally or nefariously connected. They are two local Prince George women, outstanding graduate scholars and they went because they followed their heart and convictions.
"There's no conspiracy there."
De Leeuw said it doesn't look like the charges will be processed until next month.
- with files from The Associated Press
