Sanctuary in America

Abstract

Nothing informs the current debates on American immigration more than the question of sanctuary. President Donald Trump and members of his administration all invoke the term almost daily to decry a “migrant invasion” of the nation. While Trump issues executive orders from the White House, promising to leave no stone unturned with threats to storm down church doors in their search for these “illegal invaders,” sanctuary activists cry that their directive to welcome the stranger and offer sanctuary to immigrants comes from a higher power. Faith leaders have lamented an ever-increasing federal enforcement creeping into sacred spaces, and sanctuary city leaders bemoan the increased presence of federal immigration officers violating rights in the name of carrying out Trump’s directed “largest deportation in American history.” Herein, the religious is political, and the political is religious. This showdown between church and state, playing out across our social media, however, is not new. Sanctuary in America explains how sanctuary activists have, for nearly half a century, organized the most robust social movement of civil disobedience against detention and deportation in American history.