Late on Evander Ellisthe night of Tuesday, Jan. 25, 2022, on a cold desert highway cutting through the outskirts of Bisbee, an old copper mining town in the Mule Mountains, near the U.S. border with Mexico, an Arizona state trooper stopped a green 2006 Chrysler PT Cruiser.

A busted light shrouded its license plate in darkness.

The trooper approached the car and, within minutes, identified two American men and an injured female, a migrant from Mexico. He radioed for U.S. Border Patrol to respond.

Within a half hour, he called for Bisbee Fire and Ambulance.

Malakai Robert Samuelu had presented the officer with a driver’s license from Washington state, as did his front-seat passenger, Meamoni “Junior” Faualo. They were longtime friends and first-year football players at Arizona Christian University, on this night more than 200 miles from their tiny private school in Glendale, driving a car they had borrowed from an ACU teammate.