Sanctuary in the Pews and in the Streets

Dr. Sergio M. González: Welcome to part two of our episode.

Media Clip (Adam Orman): We signed a letter to the President, talking about the anxiety in the restaurant industry and how we wanted some sort of certainty about what was going to happen to our employees. 'Till we had that certainty we were going to, we were declaring ourselves a sanctuary restaurant.

Media Clip (Jason Puckett): They're now part of a growing group. Sanctuary restaurants here in Austin and across the country wanting to send a message to President Trump.

Media Clip (Adam Orman): The customers and employees, regardless of race, religion, gender or immigrant status, should know that they are safe and secure here.

Media Clip (Jason Puckett): And so far, the results seem positive.

Dr. Lloyd Daniel Barba: At Sava's, an Ann Arbor restaurant where I enjoyed some really good meals in my grad school days at the University of Michigan, ICE agents in May 2017, had breakfast then detained three workers there. In an absolute sign of disrespect for the very people making and preparing their food. Moments and realities such as this made clear to restaurant owners that they, too, needed to pledge their commitment to safety, since many restaurants employ a large number of immigrant workers. The material consequences of their stand is hard to gauge. But in discrete ways they all help to build a broader sanctuary movement. Now there's quite a bit here, Sergio, what do we make of all this?

Dr. González: Well, Lloyd, these grassroots efforts to create little islands of protection amidst a rising sea of anti-immigrant sentiment and real government persecution had a major impact as a whole. These were all, individually, protests against Trump's immigration policies. But together, they represented a challenge to state power. And in some cases, state crackdowns that were imminent and threatening. Communities knew what Trump had promised on the campaign trail. So they chose to be proactive rather than reactive.

Dr. Barba: You're right, and there's lots to discuss as so much happened so quickly in those first months after the election and the inauguration. So let's spend some time unpacking these different forms of sanctuary for undocumented immigrants. Two interlocking big questions we'll want to keep in mind is: in an increasingly secular nation, what power would a sanctuary church or a sanctuary synagogue or even a sanctuary mosque actually have? And in this increasingly secular nation, what power could the idea of sanctuary have in non-faith spaces?

Dr. González: Yeah, those are both great questions, Lloyd. So let's get started by discussing the most familiar form of sanctuary: that is religious sanctuary and houses of worship. Now, listeners might remember Reverend Alexia Salvatierra from our last episode. She was one of the co-founders of the New Sanctuary Movement. And she's recently described in her co-authored book God's Resistance, how faith leaders began to plan for the post-2016 election. She recalls how she joined a group of 60 faith-based organizers from across the country who met in Highlander, Tennessee to quote, "pray, lament and strategize." In light of Trump's election, these seasoned organizers knew all too well what lay ahead of them.

Dr. Barba: One conclusion they came to was that previous organizing at the congregational level had been too focused on leaders. The group put their heads together to see how clergy and laity could bring passion and compassion to impacted immigrant communities so that service from non-immigrants wouldn't feel like charity or some sort of hand-me-down work. The numerous study sessions led to the founding of a Southern California based organization called Matthew 25, or Mateo 25. Here's its co-founder, Dr. Salvatierra herself, describing the group's mission in spring 2017:

Media Clip (Salvatierra): Our immigration system is ineffective, illogical, and inhumane. Matthew 25 is a bipartisan movement to protect and defend the vulnerable in the name of Jesus. Responding to our Lord's words in Matthew 25 that tell us that when we welcome the stranger, we welcome him. Matthew 25 prays, educates, serves and advocates. Please join us and please support us.

Dr. Barba: Matthew 25, in other words, wanted to help people of faith across the country to act gently as the faithful sheep in this parable. It was time to welcome the stranger, like scripture commanded us to do.

Dr. González: And keying in on networks and coordinating groups like Matthew 25 is really important, Lloyd. Because, as we mentioned in our last episode, The New Sanctuary Movement, as it began in 2006, was a very decentralized concept. This structure, however, wouldn't work if the plan was to make sanctuary a national movement as it had been in the 1980s.

Dr. Barba: By the mid-20-teens, however, one organization- Church World Service, or CWS- had begun to take on a more prominent and fixed role in coordinating what could loosely be defined as a movement. CWS is a cooperative ministry of 37 Christian denominations. It serves many roles, but one is to respond to ongoing and urgent issues in which the church, broadly defined, can have an impact by ministering through word and deed. And in 2016, there was really no issue that was more pressing than immigrant justice. So with the help of CWS, eighteen New Sanctuary Movement coalitions across the country, in late 2016 and early 2017, began to lay out the logistical support networks that would be needed to make sanctuary run. Sergio, now you were a co-founder and organizer for the network that developed in Madison, Wisconsin in 2017. Could you tell us a bit about how that process played out?

Dr. González: Yeah, absolutely, Lloyd. So, even before Trump's inauguration, houses of worship and religious organizations in Madison began organizing for sanctuary. As a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin Madison, I was working on a dissertation on the history of hospitality and sanctuary in Latino Wisconsin. I jumped right into the work of helping build sanctuary in our city as we built the Dane Sanctuary Coalition. Throughout 2017 and 2018 our small, but committed group, visited Christian churches and Jewish synagogues, inviting people of faith to join us in the renewed movement for immigrant justice. And, as you might imagine, people had a lot of questions.

Dr. Barba: Alright, well, let's see if we can frame these questions. I'm imagining congregations asked, something like, what are the legal risks?

Dr. González: Well, harboring an individual who is undocumented and is evading an order of deportation is punishable by five years in prison.

Dr. Barba: Right. And that reminds me of what happened in the sanctuary trials we discussed in Episode Four in the 1980s. And, so how about this question from congregations: will we be doing this by ourselves as a congregation alone?

Dr. González: No, definitely not. An interfaith network of congregations would be doing this together, and a congregation would be supported by an organizer (that would probably be me!). We also had help from Church World Service and a team of pro bono lawyers ready to step in when needed.

Dr. Barba: Okay, but what does inviting someone into sanctuary actually entail?

Dr. González: Now that's a really good question. If you take someone in, you'll have a full set of tools at your disposal to organize everything from legal aid to their individual case, to daily meal coordination, to supporting the family of an individual who might not enter sanctuary with them.

Dr. Barba: Uh huh, I see, but where would the person actually live?

Dr. González: Well, that's a tough one. It might actually require a congregation to physically restructure their parish hall or temple. We'd need to create some form of privacy and access for the person living in sanctuary to have a place to bathe and a kitchen.

Dr. Barba: Got it. And here's one I'm sure came up among more reticent congregations: what if ICE shows up at your door with a warrant? And what do you do if they demand to enter?

Dr. González: That was a really complicated one, and it really opens up a whole new set of questions, right? Will a congregation comply with a court-mandated warrant? Or would they be willing, to put it bluntly, to confront the deportation machine through a more physical form of civil disobedience?

Dr. Barba: That's definitely a tough one, Sergio. Okay, one final one that congregations asked, I'm sure: how long would a person be living in Sanctuary?

Dr. González: And that was probably the hardest one of all. We just didn't know...

Dr. Barba: Some knowns and some unknowns then, right? So thanks for that, Sergio. These types of conversations were happening all across the country, and they were productive ones. As we shared previously, the number of sanctuary congregations doubled from 2016 to 2017. And by 2018, that original 2016 number nearly tripled in size to over 1,000. With congregations and networks operating in 25 states.Like the original movement, sanctuary bubbled up all across the nation, not just cities and states with traditionally large immigrant communities. We really can't emphasize this point enough, this is astronomical growth in a really short amount of time. Even in the most harried moments of organizing during the 1980s movement, sanctuary movements could only have dreamed of this type of proliferation.

Dr. González: So, let's just get a scope of what this actually looked like. An estimated 70 people took sanctuary in houses of worship during the Trump presidency. In 2015 there were only three cases. In the following year, only five. In 2017, after Trump's inauguration, there were 37 cases. Nine of whom were able to leave, eventually, with some sort of legal reprieve. In the 1980s, the federal government referred to those in Sanctuary as "economic migrants illegally in the country." In the Trump era, the government called them, quote, "ICE fugitives," a rhetorical framing that continued the criminalization of undocumented residents that had been accelerating since the 1990s.

Dr. Barba: All of these sanctuaries, to some extent, relied on two important executive memos that had been issued during the Obama administration in 2011. Both came about thanks to tireless immigrant justice activism. The first regarded a legal strategy called prosecutorial discretion. Then-director of the US Citizenship and Immigration Services, John Morton, announced this update in one memo which created legal space to stop deportations. It granted ICE the ability to exercise prosecutorial discretion and to grant deferred action on a case-by-case basis. Here's Pastor Seth Kaper-Dale of Reformed Church in New Jersey's Highland Park, reading portions of the memo in the press conference on the steps of his church in December 2011:

Media Clip (Kaper-Dale): We keep talking about the June 17th memo. Tell me if any of this applies to you. These are people who should be considered for discretion. Persons who do not pose a national security or public safety concern. Anybody? No? Okay. The person's ties and contributions to the community, including family relationships. Do we have some folks? Yeah, okay. The person's age, with particular consideration given to minors and the elderly. Okay, we've got a number of minors here, folks who came here when they were five, right? Whether the person has a US citizenship or permanent resident, spouse, child or parent? Yeah? I know some people that have US citizen originate parents, right? Okay.

Dr. González: Another Morton memo issued in 2011 defines specific areas where ICE was supposed to avoid in their immigration enforcement work. These areas, called "sensitive locations," included schools, hospitals, and, crucially for the movement, houses of worship. Now, it's imperative to note, however, that both of these policies were just that- policies. That meant that President Trump was under no legal obligation to follow their dictates.

Dr. Barba: So, in other words, Sergio, "sensitive locations," then, might not be so sensitive or secure anymore. With that in mind, activists refined a series of tools to add to the physical sanctuary they could offer their undocumented neighbors. Chief among these was a practice of accompaniment. Accompaniment, loosely defined, is the act of walking alongside a sanctuary seeker.

Dr. González: Now this, in regards to sanctuary work, could mean several things. It can involve being physically present with those in Sanctuary, especially as one can become lonely living in the confined space. It can also involve clergy, often in collar, accompanying undocumented immigrants to court hearings and for check-ins at ICE offices.

Dr. Barba: One pastor I spoke to recently told me how she accompanied a sanctuary seeker to a check-in at an ICE office well after Biden had already been in office. And you want to guess whose portrait still hung on the wall long after he hadn't been in office? Yep, Trump. You guessed it. Listeners might recall a detail from Episode Two, in which the now-late Father Ricardo Elford led vigils at the Federal Building in Tucson in the months preceding the start of the original Sanctuary Movement. Well, NSM religious protests have assumed a familiar flavor and tactic. Sanctuary organizers across the country summoned up supporters to engage in Jericho Walks. These were public marches and prayer modeled after the ancient Israelites in Joshua chapter six, who walked around Jericho to bring down the walls of the city. The idea here is visibility, but also a stern rebuke of the walls that divide us on immigration. This Jericho March is something of the antithesis, if you will, to the Jericho March led by a cast of charismatic apostles and prophets on January 5, the day before the Capitol insurrection. So, here's one example of sanctuary marches really close to my hometown in Western Massachusetts.

Media Clip: Well, currently, three immigrants facing deportation are taking sanctuary throughout the Pioneer Valley. And this walk will protect these individuals as well as promote immigration justice. Participants will engage in a silent prayer walk calling for immigration justice and sanctuary. The walk is scheduled to begin at 10 o'clock this morning here at 1550 Main Street. The Jericho Walk is a project of the Pioneer Valley Worker Center's faith-organizing committee.

Dr. González: Our colleague, historian Rachel Ida Buff, has written how these marches and vigils are a form of accompaniment that quote, "brings visibility to the ever present threat of deportation." And she couldn't be more right. This is especially salient as so many deportations with immigration officers showing up to one's doorstep take place in the early hours of the morning, so as not to make a scene and snatch one away like a thief in the night.

Dr. Barba: With people living in sanctuary in proximity to other sanctuary seekers who faced similar hardships, together those in sanctuary also developed grassroots organizing within and across congregations. As we explained in previous episodes, sanctuary seekers have always been leaders in their own right. That's especially true of the NSM in which seekers became the public face of the movement. They shared their hardships and press conferences, to news channels, and documentarians. Working to both make their case clear and also educate the public about the cruelty of immigration law.

Dr. González: And the Denver Metro area offers us a remarkable example of this. Much of the sanctuary organizing work in Denver came about because of Jeanette Vizguerra's leadership, who we heard from at the beginning of our episode. When Vizguerra temporarily left sanctuary in 2017 she helped kick start the People's Resolution, an initiative sponsored by the Denver Metro Sanctuary Coalition. The women behind the People's Resolution- Sandra Lopez, Ingrid Latorre, Araceli Velasque, and Rosa Sabido- were all in sanctuary when they launched the new advocacy effort. Now, Lloyd, could you read us some excerpts from that platform?

Dr. Barba: Absolutely. So here we go. "As we gathered our communities together, we identified a hunger to name the concrete steps elected officials can take to create a path to status. The Sanctuary Four began consulting with lawyers and immigrant and faith communities to pull together simple, direct steps at the federal and state level to keep Colorado whole and strong. The People's Resolution is a result of five months of work and study. We know a majority of fellow Coloradans, regardless of political party, support creating a path of revamping our immigration system to be just, efficient, and transparent. We invite Coloradans to walk with us to create a path." And here's just a bit more, Sergio. "Our families and communities will not wait. We know Congress can create an immigration system that values the tapestry of our communities, the unity of our families, and our humanity by creating a path to citizenship for all undocumented people."

Dr. González: That's great, Lloyd, thank you. Whereas legislation for a stay of deportation sponsored by a member of Congress could address individual cases, the People's Resolution envisioned broader reform. Ingrid Latorre, of the Sanctuary Four, implored quote, "those who live in the shadows, to not be afraid of this Trump administration."And those in Sanctuary certainly weren't afraid to call out legislators and even invite them to visit them in their refuge in houses of worship. Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, for example, visited Latorre. And in December 2019, Colorado Governor Jared Polis pardoned Latorre at the state level. That allowed for her case to be reopened.

Dr. Barba: All of these practices, church based, refuge, accompaniment, public education campaigns, they're all reminders that at its core, sanctuary serves as a challenge to state power. But we've already seen in previous episodes that the power and ethic of sanctuary could extend beyond faith spaces.

Dr. González: Yeah, that's right. And as scholars A. Naomi Paik, Jason Ruiz and Rebecca Schreiber have noted, sanctuary's "religious roots speak to a higher or ultimate authority beyond secular civil government." So what if this challenge moved outside of religious spaces, particularly into manifestations like sanctuary cities or sanctuary states? And probably most importantly, what protections do these different practices of sanctuary actually offer undocumented people?

Dr. Barba: Well, for one, Sergio, sanctuary cities are not places where undocumented immigrants can't be detained and eventually deported. That's perhaps the biggest misconception. Take Los Angeles, for example, a sanctuary city in a sanctuary County, and it's also in a sanctuary state. Nevertheless, not just arrests but entire raids have long plagued Los Angeles' undocumented communities. One important difference between sanctuary congregations and cities is that undocumented immigrants are still regularly arrested in sanctuary cities. Sanctuary cities basically boil down to one key component: a non-cooperation agreement between city police officers and federal immigration officers. Or in other words, a limitation placed on city police in that it won't do the work of federal immigration officers. But what does this all mean in practice, Sergio?

Dr. González: Well, it takes on many forms. But this can include things like not allowing ICE into local jails without a judicial warrant, or not complying with ICE to hold a suspected undocumented immigrant in custody beyond the time that they would normally be released. This, as you can imagine, has serious constitutional implications. Now, I dare say that most critics, and even in cases of supporters, of sanctuary cities don't necessarily know the ins and outs or implications of a sanctuary city status. Most of the time, a sanctuary city declaration serves more as a show of solidarity with undocumented residents. And on the flip side, it can also serve as a source of misinformed fear for critics.

Dr. Barba: Sanctuary, then, really comes to represent something bigger than legalese or legal protection. Drawing again from our friend, historian Rachel Ida Buff. She wrote, "Sanctuary can denote both aspiration and specific practices; it draws on religious roots, as well as, internationalist imaginings." So, such an imagining of sanctuary has gained widespread traction in Buff's work, as well as that in scholar of migration and religion, Barbara Sostaita. The slogan, "Sanctuary Everywhere," as expressed by the Quaker American Friends Service Committee, then imagines sanctuary as a practice, not just a place. Sanctuary, since its inception as a movement in the 1980s, had always been about accompaniment and solidarity. It had often also been, however, spatially placed. And that has mattered a great deal to sanctuary temples, churches, cities, and so on. But in light of Trump's election, people began to imagine sanctuary not just as a place and not just as a series of practices, but as an alternative world view. At the heart of this new world view was respect for individuals, regardless of their immigration status, and the rejection of the narrative that criminalized immigrants.

Dr. González: Now, I doubt that Trump or anyone in his administration had delved too deeply in the theory behind the idea of "sanctuary everywhere." But he certainly understood the power of sanctuary, especially as it spread like wildfire across the nation. And he certainly understood the power of attacking sanctuary. And that's why he threatened to withhold federal funding from cities, counties, and states that chose to keep old or pass new sanctuary measures. Trump's intimidation plan worked, at least partially, as numerous cities, including some that are Latinx majority, refused to pass sanctuary ordinances.

Dr. Barba: And one of Trump's favorite targets was my home state, California, where faith-based organizations had pushed and advocated for the entire state to become sanctuary territory. And they were successful in October 2017, when legislators passed SB 54 or Sanctuary State Bill. US Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a lifelong nativist and the perfect bulldog for Trump's anti immigrant agenda, shot back.

Media Clip (CBS Mornings on Sessions lawsuit): Attorney General Jeff Sessions is in Sacramento this morning, where he's expected to formally unveil a lawsuit against California's sanctuary policies. Justice Department lawyers filed the suit last night. They want a federal court to stop California from implementing three state laws that protect undocumented immigrants. The DOJ says the state is intentionally interfering with federal immigration activities.

Dr. Barba: Sessions' attacks came in the headiest days of Trump's administration's fight against any municipality that dared stick out its neck for immigrants. The Attorney General argued that SB 54 was unconstitutional on the basis of how it interfered with federal immigration enforcement. But Sessions and sanctuary opponents, perhaps, did not expect a tidal wave of sanctuary support spearheaded by religious leaders.

Media Clip (This Little Light of Mine at Los Alamito Council Meeting): As the singing drowned out the chanting, emotions exploded tonight outside the Los Alamitos City Hall. Hundreds gathered outside a packed city hall As the first and only Orange County city discussed leaving their sanctuary status behind. Dozens lined up to speak their mind.

Dr. Barba: All across southern California, faith organizations such as Matthew 25, Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice, and LA Voice, showed up in large numbers to stand in solidarity with migrants and share why following Sessions was a wrong-headed plan. In Fullerton, in North Orange County- a historically conservative region that raised Nixon, voted for Goldwater, loved Reagan, and named its airport after John Wayne- there, 103 members of the community addressed the city council. Of those, 98 spoke favorably of sanctuary, claiming their faith compelled them to do so, and some cited biblical passages that give these injunctions. The city council then voted against joining the lawsuit.

Dr. González: Clergy all over the country mobilized both in support of sanctuary measures and against anti-sanctuary city bills. That included Texas, where the state politics were a lot less friendly to undocumented communities than in California.

Media Clip (Tucker Carlson): Well, a pastor in Texas is training members of his congregation to form a human shield against the enforcement of some American immigration laws. Jim Rigby is the pastor at St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in Austin, Texas. In May, he was arrested for trespassing while protesting a Texas State law that cracks down on sanctuary cities. He's also made his church literally a sanctuary, welcoming illegal immigrants from Guatemala and telling congregants to lock the doors if ICE comes knocking.

Dr. González: Now, one major sticking point made by critics of sanctuary cities is that these places become cesspools of crime. We just got a taste of that rhetoric earlier in this episode on that bit about 'Angel Moms.' But what's the reality on the ground? Well, study after study after study, including peer-reviewed study and data, has shown that sanctuary cities either have no impact on crime or that they actually lower crime rates. That is a very basic fact anyone who's actually read about sanctuary city outcomes knows. And, many local law enforcement officers are actually in favor of sanctuary city agreements. Now let's listen to CNN's Jake Tapper interviewing San Francisco sheriff Ross Mirkarimi:

Media Clip (Tapper): Sheriff, does being a sanctuary city make San Francisco safer or more dangerous?

Media Clip (Mirkarimi): It makes us safer. I firmly believe it makes it safer. We're a world-renowned city with a large immigrant population, and of that population, is a population that is also here undocumented. For a law enforcement perspective, we want to build trust with that population. And our sanctuary city and other attendant laws have allowed us to do that.

Dr. González: Now, Lloyd, what does he mean by gaining trust with the immigrant community?

Dr. Barba: First, let's just put it simply: if you report a crime in a sanctuary city, you won't need to fear being interrogated about your authorization to be in the country. This builds trust between authorities and undocumented members of their community. Local city police officers aren't there to do the work of ICE, again, a federal agency. Focusing, instead, on crime that is impacting the community. This makes lots of sense from the standpoint of budget costs and workforce. And in sanctuary cities, local officials can and do work with federal immigration officials in a case where someone has committed a violent crime.

Dr. González: All right, so that's all extremely helpful Lloyd. And just as houses of worship and cities across the country mobilized in rejection of Trump's immigration agenda, college campuses, long time reliable centers of protest, also joined the resistance, as they called for "sanctuary campuses."

Dr. Barba: During his campaign, Trump had promised to repeal the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA, through which more than 700,000 immigrants who had been brought to the US without proper authorization had received temporary relief from deportation. In light of the potential rescindment, 28 college and university presidents issued statements of support for undocumented students. College students wanted more than statements however. They wanted a policy to protect their undocumented classmates. That meant policies that would potentially bar federal immigration enforcement from campus and limit cooperation between campus police and the federal government on immigration-related matters.

Dr. González: Yeah. They staged walk-outs, sit-ins, and other actions at campuses in red and in blue states. That included places like my alma mater, the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Media Clip (Speaker 1): Laura Minero is a PhD student studying Counseling Psychology. She was born in Mexico, and despite the fact that she grew up in central California, she is an undocumented immigrant.

Media Clip (Speaker 2): I can say for myself, you know, my parents making the sacrifice that they did 20 years ago. If they hadn't made that sacrifice, I would not be here. I would not be at a top institution getting my PhD.

Media Clip (Speaker 1): President Elect Donald Trump has promised to repeal the law that protects undocumented immigrants who were brought to the US as children. After his victory, Monero and others created a petition to make UW a sanctuary campus for students.

Media Clip (Speaker 3): The reason that we started the letter, and the reason that we've petitioned so strongly with the chancellor and administration is because we believe that if we, as a community, have made a commitment to these students and to their families, it's our obligation to continue that commitment.

Dr. Barba: Now, you may have heard a familiar voice there. And maybe it threw you into some sort of confusion temporarily. One of the students discussing why the resolution mattered was my dear co-host, Sergio González, back in 2017. Sergio, now that you have more than, let's say, an 11 second snippet to talk about sanctuary, tell us about what organizers there had in mind.

Dr. González: Yeah, thank you, Lloyd. So I was a graduate student at the time, and like thousands of my peers across the country, I was worried that our universities weren't fully prepared for the moment. So I joined with my colleague, Laura Minero and my advisor, Cindy Cheng, to develop a petition for our chancellor to implement a plan to declare our campus a sanctuary for undocumented and documented students, staff and their family members who faced imminent deportation. We gathered thousands of signatures from current faculty and students as well as community members and alumni. And we even got a meeting with the chancellor and the university's legal team. Ultimately, however, the institution refused to declare itself a sanctuary campus. Hey, Lloyd, do you mind reading from UW-Madison's statement?

Dr. Barba: Sure. They wrote that the university chancellor, quote, "does not have independent authority to declare the campus a sanctuary. She has authority to administer and operate the university, but must do so within the limits of applicable federal and state laws and the policies and guidelines established by the Board of Regents."

Dr. González: Yeah, I remember that statement Lloyd. And in some ways, I could understand the university's contention. They certainly weren't going to put themselves in legal crosshairs by stopping federal immigration enforcement from coming on campus, so they didn't want to be seen as making any sort of false promises to undocumented students. Was a sanctuary campus declaration, a moral statement, or did it actually have any teeth? I mean, I get it, but in the midst of all the sanctuary activism spreading across the country, the chancellor's milquetoast statement still burned.

Dr. Barba: Thanks for sharing that, Sergio. It's no overstatement whatsoever to say that sanctuary campus petitions took the country by force from late 2016 through 2017. Students and faculty rolled these out at all sorts of institutions, including state schools, small colleges, Christian colleges and universities, and so on. In Fall 2016, I was at Williams College, and I should say, due to the rivalry between Williams and Amherst, I speak of my past employment there with apologies to my Amherst College students now. So at Williams College, within eight days of the election, the college president sent out a statement on quote, "caring for our undocumented students." It noted how the many sanctuary campus petitions were inspired by sanctuary cities. It also reassured us that many of the items called for were already standard practice for the college. But, like UW-Madison, it also noted that the college had no authority to prevent federal authorities from coming to campus, and the college thus did not want to do a disservice to the students by promising something it actually couldn't provide. This was standard fare for many colleges, including my own, now Amherst College, where the then-president offered similar remarks. In response to the administration, in January 2017, a group of faculty and staff at Amherst gathered in the Chapel of Chapin Hall to ritually declare it a sanctuary. Now, given the history of immigration officers being reluctant to arrest in religious spaces, and the fact that Chapin Chapel is still used for religious services, one has to wonder if it would have offered even more protection than a sanctuary campus in the moment of dire need.

Dr. González: So, we've described two cases that perhaps didn't work out for student activists. But by spring 2018, students at nearly 200 campuses had sent out petitions to make their universities and colleges 'sanctuary campuses', gathering hundreds of thousands of signatures. Administrators at 64 campuses eventually expressed some form of support, while 16 came out in full-throated approval of making their institutions sanctuary campuses. And these weren't the only educational spaces where sanctuary had moved into. The concept of a sanctuary campus also came to include sanctuary school districts. This rolled out at the grassroots level, such as in my hometown of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Media Clip: [Students chanting in support of a sanctuary school district]

Dr. González: You just heard students, part of the youth based branch of Voces de la Frontera, our largest immigrant justice organization in Wisconsin, at a Milwaukee public school board rally in support of such a measure. And you know what they won it!

Media Clip (School Board Vote): Vice President Miller- aye, Director Voss- aye, Director Woodward- aye, Director Zautke- aye, and President Sain- aye. That's eight ayes. The motion passes.

Dr. González: Sanctuary for school districts also enjoyed some serious institutional heft. The American Civil Liberties Union, for example, created model sanctuary policies for school boards to pass.

Dr. Barba: All right, so it seems like we've gotten a full tour of the geography of sanctuary in Trump-Era America. We saw how sanctuary was adopted and adapted in both smaller rural towns and in major cities. But it's the latter, those big urban spaces that continue to be in the crosshairs of federal officials. I mean, even today, it's hard to not come across headlines with mentions of Chicago or New York City's relationship to immigrants and sanctuary policies.

Dr. González: Yeah, but if we could, I'd like to take us back to where we started our episode today: Denver. In the years following Trump's election, Denver had the full buffet of sanctuary options. Of course, it had a vibrant church based sanctuary network. It had universities declaring themselves sanctuary campuses, and it also had a series of policies in place that effectively made the city a sanctuary city.

Dr. Barba: Well, was it actually a sanctuary city? Not, if you ask Mayor Michael Hancock.

Media Clip (Hancock): We've never passed a policy to be a sanctuary city. But we're an open and inclusive city, one in which we value greatly, in our state of Colorado.

Dr. González: You see, even if the city council had passed multiple policies restricting local police officers' engagement with federal immigration officials, the last thing Mayor Hancock wanted was to be labeled a sanctuary city. Not when federal funds were potentially on the line. In other words, the threats from Trump and his attorney general, in some ways, worked in having city officials shy away from this designation. Regardless of Hancock's hand wringing, however, Denver remained a home to some of the most robust immigrant led religious sanctuary organizing. And that was organizing, as we've already described, that was primarily led by immigrants themselves, people like Jeanette Vizguerra.

Dr. Barba: We began our episode today explaining how Vizguerra had taken sanctuary in 2017. That, of course, was a chapter in her longer story of fighting the country's deportation system. Ultimately, Vizguerra spent three months in Sanctuary. With the help of her sanctuary network, she finally secured a two year stay of deportation.

Media Clip (Vizguerra with Translator Voiceover): Buenos días a todos [good morning, everyone].Hoy es un dia especial para mí [It's a special day for me], porque voy a poder celebrar el dia de las madres con mis hijos [ because I will be able to celebrate Mother's Day with my children] y mis nietos [and my grandchildren].

Dr. Barba: That stay of deportation, however, was a temporary one. Vizguerra knew that, absent some permanent fix, she and millions of other people living in the country were operating on borrowed time.

Media Clip (Vizguerra with Translator Voiceover): Tenemos más gente en santuario. El día de ayer arrestaron a un compañero Marco Tulio. Que nos toca luchar por él. [We have more people in Sanctuary.Yesterday, they arrested a friend of ours, Marco TULIO. Now we have to struggle for him as well].

Dr. González: And, unfortunately, Vizguerra's time eventually ran out. In 2019, facing another potential deportation, she re-entered sanctuary. And she did so as the country prepared for yet another monumental presidential election. As had been the case in 2016, immigration proved a critical political topic. Former Vice President Joe Biden promised to roll back the most odious policies that marked Trump's four years in office, and would even secure a pathway to citizenship, or so he promised, for the country's 11 million undocumented residents.

Media Clip (Biden): And the fact is, I've made it very clear. Within 100 days, I'm going to send to the United States Congress a pathway to citizenship for over 11 million undocumented people. And all of those so-called Dreamers, those DACA kids, they're going to be immediately certified again to be able to stay in this country and put on a path to citizenship.

Dr. Barba: Biden's win in 2020 could have felt perhaps like a referendum on the nativism and xenophobia that had defined his opponent. And sanctuary activists might have perhaps been hopeful about how things might have changed. That included Jeanette Vizguerra, who was living in Sanctuary when Biden took the oath of office.

Media Clip: It's been almost two years since Jeanette Vizguerra took sanctuary at a Denver church out of fear of deportation. Now, under President Biden, she is optimistic, yet still cautious on what the future holds for her case.

Dr. Barba: Vizguerra expressed some cautious optimism that Biden might live up to his campaign promises.

Media Clip: Now with the new administration, she's hopeful to regain her freedom and reunite with her family outside the church's doors, something she says wasn't possible under the Trump administration. Jeanette says she wants to believe that change is on the way, but still finds it hard. Sometimes. She says, unless Congress and President Biden work together to fulfill comprehensive immigration reform, nothing will change.

Dr. González: Things, however, didn't turn out how Vizguerra and other immigration activists hoped. Biden had barely won the election, which was a stark reminder that many Americans still adhered to Trump's vision on immigration.

Dr. Barba: The new president did prioritize reuniting separated families. He looked for ways to protect Dreamers and mixed-status families, and he expanded pathways to citizenship for some undocumented residents. And as a movement's strategy, sanctuary became less and less publicly present during the Biden administration.

Dr. González: In some ways, however, he was also a moderate Democrat who'd lived and legislated through the anti-immigrant end of the 20th century. And he came back to a familiar political inclination to move rightward when public sentiment seemed again turned against immigrants and migrants.

Dr. Barba: The political will to pass comprehensive immigration reform never materialized. And as his political opponents framed a growing number of asylum seekers at the US-Mexico border as a national crisis, Biden returned to the old party ways of the 1990s and 2000s. Functionally shutting down long-standing asylum practices for many people in the summer of 2024.

Dr. González: And now, as the country barrels towards yet another presidential election where immigration will play a central part. We're forced to ask, what role will people of faith play in reorienting our nation towards a politics that welcomes the stranger instead of slamming the door in his face? Join us next time for our final episode, as we explore the future of sanctuary in America.

Dr. Barba: That's it for this episode of sanctuary. Thank you so much for listening. I'm Dr. Lloyd Barba

Dr. González: and I'm Dr. Sergio González.

Dr. Barba: Remember, sanctuary saves lives,

Dr. González: and strangers are neighbors you just haven't met yet.