Sanctuary Cities

From Conscience to Governance

On Toward a New Common Ground, we believe that perspective and context feed critical thinking. Rather than just react, we seek to understand the flow of events and policies to aid clarity of thought as we seek a sustainable path forward.

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The existence of sanctuary cities has been generating increasingly strong reactions for and against:

Bastions of lawless renegades!?

Or legitimate policy construct with a purpose!?

Accusations abound that the Federal government is using Minnesota as a proxy fight over sanctuary policies.

Let’s put federal tactics aside for a moment and ask:

How did “sanctuary cities” come about?

Is this some “woke lunatic left” idea?

Or is there valuable perspective from context?

Skipping historical mentions as well as the Vietnam war era sanctuary city movement to protect draft-protesters, this post highlights only the current immigrant-related movement.

Origins

Driven by US foreign policy in Central America, the current immigrant sanctuary movement in the US began in the early 1980s.

Civil wars in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua produced hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing oppressive regimes and militias that were supported or tolerated by the U.S. government.

• The Reagan administration denied asylum to most of these refugees, arguing they were “economic migrants,” not political refugees.

Churches Led the Way

Perhaps remembering that the US turned away Jews fleeing Europe in the 1930s and 1940s, religious leaders and activists believed they faced a moral question:

• If people are fleeing from violence and asylum is denied, what is our obligation?

Drawing on biblical concepts of sanctuary (protecting the persecuted) and framing their actions as obedience to higher moral law over unjust state policy, the answer for many churches and synagogues was ethical and religious, and in 1982 Southside Presbyterian Church in Tucson, Arizona publicly declared itself a sanctuary. They were quickly joined by: Catholic parishes, Jewish synagogues, and other houses of worship providing housing, legal assistance, transportation, and protection from immigration authorities.

By the mid-1980s hundreds of congregations participated nationwide.

From Churches to Cities

Throughout the 1980s local leaders and city governments faced a growing crisis: Fear of deportation was discouraging immigrant communities from reporting crimes, cooperating with police, or seeking medical services -- even when gravely ill. A shadowy society of people living “out of sight” and in constant fear was growing and, as a result, local public safety was suffering.

As the church sanctuary movement spread, municipal governments began asking:

• If churches are doing this, should cities limit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement in order to build local trust?

Stressing a need to build trust within the community to enhance public safety, cities with substantial immigrant communities, like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, adopted policies that prohibited city employees (especially police) from asking about immigration status and restricted information-sharing with federal immigration authorities.

Legal Foundation: Federalism -- Not Open Borders

Cities did not claim authority over immigration law, rather they claimed authority over how local resources are used.

This distinction remains central and is based on two core constitutional principles:

1. Federal responsibility for immigration

   Immigration enforcement is a federal power, and states and cities are not required to enforce federal law.

2. Anti-commandeering doctrine

   The federal government cannot force states or cities to use local police to enforce federal law; nor to hold detainees without a warrant.

Cities and states say: “We are not stopping ICE. We are exercising our right to not help.”

No sanctuary city or state is granting legal immigration status or using local police to impede ICE operations. They see their actions as exercising local control over police practices and limiting voluntary cooperation with federal immigration enforcement, to enhance public trust and local safety. Whether a place has sanctuary status or not, ICE can operate freely.

Quiet Expansion and 9/11 Pause

Sanctuary policies spread quietly through the 1990s, rarely generating national headlines and typically framed as local policies to enhance public trust and safety, not express ideology. 9/11 brought a shift: Immigration enforcement became intertwined with national security, federal-local cooperation increased, and some sanctuary policies were weakened or shelved. But the idea remained.

Modern Revival and Transformation

With immigration continuing to be a major debate, and substantive legislative solutions politically dead in Congress, the Obama administration adopted a two-pronged approach. They expanded deportations overall, sometimes angering the left by emphasizing speed over fairness, and even running afoul of due process. A record 5 million immigrants were deported over two terms. At the same time, the Obama administration tried to protect those immigrants who had either arrived as children or who were productively living among us, through introduction and passage of DACA and support for selective discretion in enforcement. This policy tension -- strict enforcement + selective empathy-- together with a continued lack of any legislative solution, resulted in sanctuary policies remaining in vogue.

Sanctuary Cities Become National Flashpoints

As politically fueled anti-immigrant sentiments continued to grow, politicians looked for ways to point fingers anywhere they could. Sanctuary cities were an obvious target, and with well-honed rhetoric they reframed them as “lawless,” “criminal-protecting,” and downright “anti-American.” This politicized sanctuary policies beyond their original scope and twisted their original intent.

The first Trump administration attempted to pressure local governments to drop sanctuary policies and cooperate with ICE by threatening to withhold federal funds. These moves backfired and more cities and states adopted sanctuary-style laws. The sanctuary movement expanded upward to “sanctuary states” (e.g., California, New York, Illinois).

Christian Nationalists Lead the Way

In an ironic twist, once again religious doctrine finds a spot at the front. Embracing a belief that sanctuary cities are an “anti-biblical” rejection of the rule of law, Christian nationalists have been a leading force in the fight against sanctuary cities. They argue that religious leaders have a “duty” to protect their country from foreign nationals, and they use religious framing to bolster nationalist, anti-immigrant sentiment. Together with associated politicians these groups are leveraging a combination of political, rhetorical, and legislative strategies aimed at forcing the end of policies that limit local cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.

Perspective and Context

Today, lines have been drawn and, as with so many things, perspective and context have been buried under propaganda and casuistry. Since the GOP leadership torpedoed the bipartisan immigration reform bill of 2024, there is still no meaningful effort to craft another bipartisan, lasting legislative solution for our seriously broken immigration system.

At times it seems stoking fires of discontent to drive long-term fundraising is the only objective for many politicians.

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Suggested Reading

Churches Led the Way

“Government Crackdown on ‘Sanctuary’ Movement.” United Press International, January 19, 1985. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1985/01/19/Government-crackdown-on-sanctuary-movement/9856474958800/.

“Sojourners Staff. “Conspiracy of Compassion: Four Indicted Leaders Discuss the Sanctuary Movement.” Sojourners, March 1985. https://sojo.net/magazine/march-1985/conspiracy-compassion-four-indicted-leaders-discuss-sanctuary-movement.

Fife, John. “The Sanctuary Movement.” PBS Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, February 3, 2017. https://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2017/02/03/sanctuary-movement/34422/.

Sanctuary Cities in the 1990s

Coutin, Susan Bibler. The Culture of Protest: Religious Activism and the U.S. Sanctuary Movement. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993.

Reinhold, Robert. “U.S. Cities Clash With Federal Immigration Enforcement Over ‘Sanctuary’ Policies.” New York Times, March 15, 1995.

Smith, John. “Sanctuary Cities Stir Controversy as Immigrant Populations Grow.” Los Angeles Times, July 22, 1997.

Merkt, Stacey. “Cities Resist Federal Immigration Law With Sanctuary Resolutions.” Washington Post, September 9, 1998.

Gonzalez, Benjamin, and Loren Collingwood. Sanctuary Cities: The Politics of Refuge (selected chapter from “The Sanctuary City in Historical Perspective”). Oxford University Press, 1999.

Obama Administration Deportations

Larotonda, Matthew. “More Than 100 Protesters Arrested Outside White House Over Deportations.” ABC News, July 31, 2014. https://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2014/07/more-than-100-protesters-arrested-outside-white-house-over-deportations.

Larotonda, Matthew. “Immigration Sit-In Outside White House Results in About 100 Arrests.” ABC News, August 28, 2014. https://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2014/08/immigration-sit-in-outside-white-house-results-in-about-100-arrests.

Parks, MaryAlice. “Chained to White House Fence: Immigrants Protest Obama Deportations.” ABC News, September 18, 2013. https://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/09/chained-to-white-house-fence-immigrants-protest-obama-deportations.

Gibble, Eric. “Over 100 Faith Leaders Arrested in Protest Against Record Deportations.” American Immigration Council, August 1, 2014. https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/blog/over-100-faith-leaders-arrested-in-protest-against-record-deportations.

Leon, Carla. “Protesters March to Demand an End to Mass Deportations.”Cronkite News, December 3, 2015.https://cronkitenews.azpbs.org/2015/12/03/protesters-march-to-demand-an-end-to-mass-deportations/

Sanctuary Cities Today

Chishti, Muzaffar, and Faye Hipsman. “Sanctuary Cities Come Under Scrutiny, As Does Federal-Local Immigration Relationship.” Migration Policy Institute, August 20, 2015.

“Republicans Hammer Mayors of Boston, Chicago, Denver and New York over ‘Sanctuary City’ Policies.”Associated Press, March 5, 2025.

“DOJ Lawsuit Says New York City Impeding Trump’s Immigration Crackdown.” Washington Post, July 25, 2025.

“Trump Administration Sues Los Angeles Over Sanctuary Policies.” Politico, June 30, 2025.

“U.S. Homeland Security Removes List of ‘Sanctuary’ Cities After Sheriffs’ Push Back on Non-Compliant Label.”Reuters, June 2, 2025.

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