Sanctuary cities in the US, which restrict native cooperation with federal immigration enforcement, have drawn the ire of President Donald Trump throughout each of his administrations.
Border czar Tom Homan mentioned in July 2025 that the Trump administration would goal sanctuary cities throughout the nation and “flood the zone” with brokers from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to pursue deportation objectives.
I’m a historian of migration. I’ve discovered that the idea of sanctuary takes many kinds, from gestures of kindness and advocacy to extra formal approaches similar to church buildings defending migrants vulnerable to arrest and deportation.
Within the U.S., sanctuary metropolis insurance policies have traditionally been designed to help undocumented immigrants and refugees, particularly these going through deportation. Ordinances based mostly on these insurance policies are sometimes utilized by native authorities to sign the necessity for substantive immigration reform.
New public sanctuary insurance policies
As we speak’s sanctuary practices, and the federal concentrating on of sanctuary cities, are largely the results of the best way sanctuary took form throughout the U.S. within the Eighties.
Throughout this era, church buildings, metropolis officers and activists assisted migrants fleeing the violent circumstances created by U.S. proxy wars in El Salvador, Nicaragua and Guatemala.
Within the early Eighties, migrants arriving within the U.S. confronted restrictive asylum processes. To a big extent, this was the results of the Reagan administration’s refusal to acknowledge the extent of human rights violations perpetrated by U.S.-supported regimes in Central America.
In 1984, the federal authorities accredited lower than 3% of U.S. asylum claims by candidates who had fled El Salvador and Guatemala. By comparability, asylum claims have been accredited for over 30% – and in some circumstances, 60% – of refugees from Iran, Afghanistan and Poland.
In response, U.S. activists and church and metropolis leaders started to advocate on behalf of refugees from Central America. They sought to impact change at residence and overseas, ultimately coalescing into what turned generally known as the Sanctuary Motion.
This largely decentralized coalition centered on defending refugees by offering protected housing, typically in church buildings, and advocating for his or her proper to hunt asylum. And so they engaged in public outreach to boost consciousness in regards to the circumstances in Central America and the U.S. authorities’s position in conflicts there.
The aim was to alter U.S. coverage. As one sanctuary employee in Texas mentioned in 1985, in response to accounts compiled on the Benson Latin American Assortment on the College of Texas at Austin: “Sanctuary offers a way, by which folks can, number one, be safe from the fear of death, and, number two, speak out as to what is really going on in Central America.”
Father Richard Sinner, left, and Salvadoran starvation strikers sit outdoors the Immigration and Naturalization Service processing heart to protest immigration measures on Feb. 21, 1989, in Brownsville, Texas.
Walt Frerck/AFP/Getty Photos
The Sanctuary Motion additionally led to organized visits to the U.S.-Mexico border to witness the methods during which migrants have been being handled by U.S. immigration officers. In Texas between 1983 and 1985, as an example, individuals have been invited to doc the actions of immigration officers at Port Isabel Detention Heart.
Members of the Sanctuary Motion additionally shared a few of the horrors they realized about from missionaries and refugees arriving from Central America, in response to accounts within the Benson Latin American Assortment.
As a member of the Rio Grande Border Witness group conveyed, in response to data preserved within the Benson Latin American Assortment, there have been repeated tales out of Central America “of women being raped and stabbed” and “of fathers being murdered in front of their families.”
As consciousness about violence in Central America elevated, extra individuals and congregations within the U.S. turned concerned within the Sanctuary Motion. At its peak in 1986, the motion included 300 church buildings that endorsed sanctuary for Central American migrants and the rules underpinning the Sanctuary Motion.
Public and symbolic
It was throughout this peak that U.S. cities first started making sanctuary declarations and later handed binding ordinances.
In 1985, Berkeley, California, which had beforehand declared itself a sanctuary metropolis for conscientious objectors to the Vietnam Warfare, made one of many first sanctuary metropolis declarations on behalf of refugees from Central America. Its decision reaffirmed town’s “support for the principle of sanctuary and for those groups which engage in this time-honored tradition of humanitarian assistance.”
Metropolis officers mentioned that no metropolis worker would “violate the established sanctuaries by assisting in investigations, public or clandestine, by engaging in or assisting with arrests for alleged violation of immigration laws by the refugees in the sanctuaries or by those offering sanctuary.”
A member of the clergy with New Sanctuary Coalition enters an immigration courtroom as federal brokers wait outdoors on July 8, 2025, in New York.
AP Photograph/Olga Fedorova
Cities similar to San Francisco and Santa Fe, New Mexico, adopted with declarations or binding ordinances. These initiatives have been typically particularly crafted for migrants from Central America and contained critiques of U.S. overseas coverage and asylum coverage.
A 1989 San Francisco ordinance, which continues to be in impact, was impressed by the notion that the U.S. had particular obligations to the residents of El Salvador and Guatemala due to its position within the conflicts there.
There was highly effective rhetoric and symbolism within the sanctuary metropolis resolutions handed within the Eighties. This holds true for the current, as sanctuary declarations and insurance policies have change into more and more polarizing in as we speak’s political local weather.
Furthermore, as I be aware in my very own work, public acts of sanctuary can come at a value, typically on the expense of the very individuals they’re meant to assist. In an effort to boost public consciousness and sympathy, these in want of refuge typically have their most harrowing moments laid naked for public consumption.
The Sanctuary Motion that started within the Eighties, partially to protest U.S. help for repressive governments, has endured for greater than 40 years as an expression of concern for and solidarity with immigrants who come to the U.S.
The query now could be how the motion will evolve within the face of the Trump administration’s threats.
Some sanctuary metropolis leaders, similar to Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, have responded by pointing to the worth of insurance policies that foster group belief and assist hold all residents protected. How different leaders and communities reply stays to be seen.
