The Future of Sanctuary? (clone)

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

Dr. Lloyd Daniel Barba: But now that we're at our final episode of the series, I would imagine our listeners would like to know where we, two historians, want to take this. So for more than 40 years, Sanctuary has played an especially important role in these types of misappropriations. And it's only gotten more extreme over the last few years. So extreme, in fact, that conservative political actors, people who perhaps would want nothing to do with the ethic of sanctuary that calls on us to 'welcome the stranger,' have begun to take up the language of sanctuary for their own ends.

Dr. González: Okay, wait, hold on, Lloyd, do you mean to say that there are people who aren't friendly to undocumented residents who are using the concept of sanctuary as well.

Dr. Barba: Oh yeah, you better believe it. I'd hazard a guess that a good number of listeners may have heard of something like this in recent years:

Media Clip: Madison County, Nebraska, Board of Commissioners today adopted a resolution to designate Madison County as a Second Amendment sanctuary. That means if the federal government ever came to Madison County to take away someone's guns, the county wouldn't assist the federal government. The board held a public discussion on the topic at its last meeting. Those who attended favored making the county a Second Amendment sanctuary. No board members had any objections to the resolution.

Dr. González: A sanctuary for gun rights? This can't be real, right?

Dr. Barba: It is, and the idea has been spreading to small towns and even states all across the country. This is one of a handful of forms of what we might call 'reactionary sanctuaries.' These forms of reactionary sanctuaries take to heart a key part of the 1980s and more contemporary immigrant sanctuary movements- a challenge to state power. You can hear it in the language in the clip we just listened to. Basically, local residents want to engage in a form of non-cooperation in enforcement of a federal law.

Dr. González: Aha. Now, I'm getting it. Alright, so non-cooperation when it comes to laws restricting access to guns. But now I'm thinking, Lloyd, there are other ways in which this concept of sanctuary has been taken up as well. Let's talk about this. How about municipalities opposing access to abortion or women's reproductive health?

Media Clip: So in a nutshell, the Sanctuary City for the Unborn Initiative came to be because there was an abortion facility, at one time, that was looking at crossing the border from Shreveport, Louisiana to Waskom Texas. That community didn't want an abortion facility in their city, and so we ended up presenting an ordinance there in Waskom, Texas that resulted in the city of Waskom becoming the first city in the nation to pass an ordinance outlawing abortion within their city limits. Many other cities followed in their footsteps.

Dr. Barba: Whoa, all right, so 'sanctuaries for the unborn.' I'm guessing that the activists pushing for these types of sanctuary aren't drawing from the same scriptural justifications that immigrant activists look to, right?

Dr. González: Yeah, definitely not. You're not going to see Matthew 25 popping up in any sermon in support of these challenges to state power. No, Lloyd, to understand the theological framing for these types of sanctuaries, we're going to need to turn to... wait for it... No surprise here, my home state of Wisconsin. Now, it's there that a controversial pastor, Matthew Trewhalla, has developed a concept he calls, quote, "the doctrine of lesser magistrates." Now we don't have the time or space to dig into the entire idea here, but in a nutshell, Trewhalla relies upon 16th century Calvinist teachings to justify both legislative and extra-legal measures to resist what he, and the religious right, consider unjust or un-Christian laws. And according to reporting from ProPublica, Trewhalla, once considered an extremist fringe figure for his support of violence against medical facilities that provide abortions, has now become the darling of Trump officials, Republican legislators and conservative activists.

Media Clip (Trewhalla): People realize there is no federal solution to America's ills, rather, the federal government is the problem. They're the ones who are the dispensers of injustice and lawlessness. They're the ones who are the imposters of decadence and injustice. And so, people are realizing they no longer have the convenience of behaving indifferently towards the unjust and immoral actions of their federal government. They're realizing that resistance must be made.

Dr. Barba: In these appropriations of sanctuary, we can see the importance of sanctuary as a concept and movement strategy, but also its malleability, which means its ability to be appropriated.

Dr. González: This sounds like the idea of sanctuary everywhere, Lloyd, but kind of, in a mutated sense, a real bizarro sanctuary.

Dr. Barba: I guess. But is this a serious, theologically-based form of sanctuary? Or is it tongue-in-cheek? Those are open questions, but what's undeniable is that sanctuary, as a way of understanding grassroots activism and challenges to state power, has real power.

Dr. González: All right, so we've got these 'reactionary sanctuaries,' or, you know, I kind of like this idea of 'bizarro sanctuary.' But we also know that even within immigrant justice organizing, sanctuary has sometimes been a contested idea.

Dr. Barba: That's right. You've got the more zealous end of the spectrum, perhaps personified best by one of the founders of the 1980 sanctuary movement, the Tucson Quaker activist Jim Corbett. Back then, he pushed activists to declare sanctuary because, quote, "there is no middle ground between collaboration and resistance."

Dr. González: I mean, Lloyd, that sounds pretty straightforward, right? But that's not how all migration activists have felt. In fact, over the last few decades, immigrant justice activists have tried to hold dear the religious ethic of 'welcoming the stranger' while avoiding the tactics that might put them in conflict with the state. In other words, they've tried to carve out some middle ground in the sanctuary fight. And that's meant sometimes, paradoxically, even working with the state in their mission to help immigrants and refugees.

Dr. Barba: Wait, like collaborating with Border Patrol and ICE? Come on.

Dr. González: That's exactly right. And that reminds me of another sanctuary innovation, but this one takes us to Brownsville, Texas, and the Ministry of Sister Norma Pimentel. In the late 1980s, Pimentel was the assistant director of Casa Romero, the safe house for Central American refugees that we talked about in the past episode. She stepped into her position after the federal government's prosecution of sanctuary activists and Casa Romero workers, Jack Elder and Stacy Merkt.

Dr. Barba: That's right, and following those trials, Pimentel moved Casa Romero away from this form of sanctuary ministry, one that was explicitly political and one that had placed the organization in the government's crosshairs. As she told the National Catholic Reporter in 1987, quote, "The humanitarian emphasis is critical to Casa's survival. If we get involved in politics, we run the risk of losing the house, and our interest is to have it open for those who need it."

Dr. González: So over the next few decades, Pimentel committed herself to serving the hundreds of thousands of migrants who arrive at the US-Mexico border every year. And today, she's perhaps one of the most important figures engaged in this ministry. As executive director of Catholic Charities in the Rio Grande Valley, she's helped thousands of people who have sought safe harbor in this country.

Media Clip (Pimentel): I see our role as church towards the immigrants as a welcoming community that will embrace and welcome immigrants that come from so far away in search of safety and protection. That through our efforts, we're actually saying to them that you're important to God, and we're here to show you that you matter.

Dr. González: And she's been praised by Pope Francis for her work, and was even named one of Time magazine's list of 100 most influential people in 2020

Dr. Barba: But because she holds such an important institutional position, one that helps so many people, she's expressed some pretty clear hesitation about how far she's willing to challenge the immigration and asylum systems in this country that force people to live in fear of detention and deportation.

Dr. González: Yeah, that's right, Lloyd. Sister Pimentel has adopted a pragmatic stance here. The goal is to help those in distress and dire need and not necessarily to upend the existing order. Even while she has consistently denounced the inhumane policies and xenophobic rhetoric that marks modern immigration politics, she's tried to distinguish between the need for humanitarian aid and challenging political figures.

Dr. Barba: So when Texas Governor Greg Abbott bussed thousands of migrants to, what he believed to be, 'sanctuary cities,' Sister Pimentel largely refrained from criticizing him. In fact, and this is kind of wild to wrap our heads around, as a director of the Rio Grande Valley's Catholic Charities, Pimentel had screened asylum seekers for the Texas state program responsible for bussing new arrivals across the country.

Dr. González: Now ultimately, Pimentel believes that the complicated legal and moral terrain of immigration advocacy means that sometimes her agency needs to even collaborate with the same government officials and Border Patrol agents that sanctuary activists have been protesting against for years.

Media Clip (Pimentel): Border Patrol calls me and says, 'Sister, I have a family that I want to take to your center.' And yes, of course, we take them, we welcome them, we give them a space where they're safe, and where they can rest, and contact their families and move on safely beyond this point.

Dr. Barba: All right, so nearing the end of our series, where do we go from here? We'll refrain from rubbing the crystal ball and keep our concluding thoughts reflective rather than speculative.

Dr. González: That's fair enough. You know, we'll stick to our job descriptions as historians. But that should be plenty, because there's certainly so much that we can draw on from the past to evaluate our present moment. All right, Lloyd, where are we going to start?

Dr. Barba: How about we go back to a group that we discussed in an earlier episode: the California-based Mateo Veticinco, Matthew 25. They're an example of a group that understood that sanctuary activism, in the 21st century, would require more than just church-based safe harbor, although sometimes it comes down to exactly that. They surveyed the field in a post-Trump election world and knew that a whole slew of tactics would be necessary to achieve immigration justice. That would include things like direct action, relief work, and public policy advocacy such as pushing for initiatives like sanctuary cities.

Dr. González: And that, of course, raises a big question for us, Lloyd. If the 1980s movement saw itself as a bulwark against state power, especially when the state refused to welcome the stranger, what is the New Sanctuary Movement of our generation trying to achieve? And that might lead us to ask a connected question: what would a 'win,' if we could define it as such, look like for the new Sanctuary Movement today?

Dr. Barba: Yeah, those are both really important questions, but hard ones to answer. The goals of the 1980s movement were more clearly defined and did not bear the same weight of what sociologist Grace Yukich called a multi-targeted social movement. The 1980s movement brought national attention to the US's role in the Central American proxy wars and succeeded in forcing the US government to reconsider asylum applications for those fleeing the civil wars in Central America. Movement organizers counted that as a major victory.

Dr. González: I mean, that one seems pretty clear, Lloyd. But the New Sanctuary Movement, which began in the summer of 2006, has yet to realize that monumental goal of comprehensive immigration reform. A major goal of this movement, as we heard from the New Sanctuary Movement co-founder Dr. Alexia Salvatierra In Episode Five, was, of course, a change course on federal policy. But we haven't had comprehensive immigration reform, and let's be honest, there's really no runway for that to happen anytime soon.

Dr. Barba: Now, Sergio, to be fair, we have seen some piecemeal reforms. That includes initiatives like Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA. Which came about in no small part because of the advocacy of sanctuary activists.

Dr. González: Yeah, and Lloyd, the fact that a significant portion of the US population is aware of the need for immigration reform owes to the efforts of sanctuary organizers, people of faith, and the broader coalition of immigrant rights advocates.

Dr. Barba: And, also, don't forget that New Sanctuary Movement leaders fought for prosecutorial discretion in 2011. And they pushed for a sensitive locations memo. This listed hospitals, schools, and houses of worship, for example, as places where arrests would not take place. While the first two have been violated repeatedly, houses of worship continue to offer safe harbor.

Dr. González: Yeah, but the big victories for the New Sanctuary Movement have thus far come in the form of individual cases, not systemic reform. In other words, we're talking about stays of deportation that mean a whole lot for an individual or a family. But it's definitely not addressing the rotten parts of our country's immigration system.

Dr. Barba: And okay, so we promise not to prognosticate, but this track record perhaps gives us some hints of what might lie ahead for immigration justice and movements made in houses of worship. Let's start with this: What might happen if Trump wins another round in the White House?

Dr. González: Okay. Well, one thing we should anticipate in the event of a second Trump presidency is a continuation of a pattern that developed under his first term: ICE attacks on sanctuary leaders and seekers. It's exactly what he did when he assumed the presidency in 2017. Three months into Trump's first term in office, ICE detained sanctuary leader Arturo Hernandez Garcia at his jobsite. Hernandez Garcia had fled into sanctuary in Denver. Here he is describing that initial interaction:

Media Clip (Hernandez Garcia): That happened the last Wednesday, the one guy is coming for me and asking, "Are you Arturo?" I said yes. I don't have any problems. And I don't know why they arrested me. Are you arrested for staying illegally in the country? Ah, sad, it's really sad. This is hard times. Because I feel like criminal when I don't do nothing. We are not criminal. We come here only to work. And when I was in detention centers, too many people in the same situation, they want to go to their families. You know, they have family.

Dr. González: Now, it ultimately took the intervention of a Colorado congressman to finally get Hernandez's release from ICE custody.

Dr. Barba: And the following month, in May 2017, ICE lured Marco Tulio Coss into a check-in where they told his lawyer and pastor that he was just getting an ankle monitor. ICE waited until he was left alone for what would be a long appointment and shoved him in a van and drove him across the border.

Media Clip: The lawyer for a Mesa man deported Thursday says Immigration and Customs Enforcement lied to him. Marco Tulio Coss had fought for years to stay in the country. For years, Coss did regular check-ins at ICE headquarters in Phoenix. After filing new paperwork to stop his deportation, Attorney Ravi Arora, says officials told him Coss would not face arrest until after the request was considered. ICE then sent Coss to get an ankle bracelet. Arora went with him, but they were told it would take a couple hours. Aurora says ICE already knew he had to be in court for another case. When Arora left, ICE arrested Koss.

Media Clip (Arora): They deliberately lied and misled myself, him and others, in order to get him down here and in order to separate him from me and from the press so that they could remove him from the country.

Dr. Barba: And that leads us to some of the most concerted attacks against sanctuary leaders during the Trump presidency, which occurred in New York City. In January 2018, ICE sent multiple vans to the home of Jean Montrevil, one of the founders of the city's movement. Montrevil was eventually deported, even though he lived in the country for 30 years and had a wife and US born children. ICE also detained one of the most outspoken and effective leaders of the New York City Sanctuary Movement, Ravi Ragbir.

Media Clip (Flanagan): I'm Jenna Flanagan. Prominent New York immigration activist, Ravi Ragbir, was taken into custody by immigration and customs enforcement officials last month. His detainment during a routine check-in sparked protests outside Federal Plaza, resulting in 18 arrests, including two members of the New York City Council. Amid the public outcry, and after being flown to a detention center in Florida where he faced deportation, a US district judge stated that the arrest was unnecessarily cruel, ordering his release. Now back in New York, but still facing the risk of deportation, I'm pleased to welcome the Executive Director of the New Sanctuary Coalition, Ravi Ragir, to the program.

Dr. González: Okay, so we have some of that frame now, Lloyd. That's one major area to keep an eye on moving forward- the federal government targeting sanctuary leaders, which in itself is a continuation, of course, of the 1980 sanctuary trials. All right, got it

Dr. Barba: Another area, keeping our focus on major cities like New York... What's the status of those big cities that pledged to be safe places for immigrants, even if it meant pushing back against federal laws like those promoted by Donald Trump and the Justice Department?

Dr. González: Now Lloyd, do you mean those so-called sanctuary cities that we've been talking about over the last few episodes? Places like New York City, Chicago and Denver? Well, I would imagine that under the Biden administration, they've been safe spaces for immigrants and migrants, right?

Dr. Barba: Well, kind of. The fear of detention and deportation may have diminished during the Biden years, but these cities have been grappling with a whole new problem as of late. As I'm sure many listeners know, since 2021, an unprecedented number of people from Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti and other parts of Latin America have arrived at the US-Mexico border. They've come fleeing political upheaval, persecution, economic depressions, and a whole slew of other issues. Listen here to Reverend Juan Carlos Ruiz, pastor of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Brooklyn. He's been working with migrants as a co-founder of The New Sanctuary Movement and The New Sanctuary Coalition in New York City.

Media Clip (Ruiz): So many of them are coming, you know, with their whole family. So you're talking about children in their arms, trekking through jungles, being chased by cartels. I mean, horrifying stories of bodies being found in the jungle as they go up the mountains, as they cross rivers. So this is really a human catastrophe.

Dr. Barba: Many of them have hoped to avail themselves of the asylum procedures that we've been talking about in the series, while others have entered the country without legal documentation.

Dr. González: Yep, and a lot of those new arrivals have made their way to some of the country's biggest cities. Many of which had, in the Trump years, passed policies that made them, well for lack of a better word, sanctuary cities. Or at least, if they didn't pass resolutions explicitly calling themselves sanctuary municipalities, they put policies in place that both portrayed the city as welcoming spaces for immigrants and locations that might be willing to wrangle with a Trump administration intent on demonizing immigrants.

Dr. Barba: But over the last few years, cities like New York City, Chicago, and Denver have been grappling with how best to serve the thousands of people that have made their way to these urban spaces. Some asylum seekers arrived with the legal ability to work, but, because of our country's arcane and often draconian migration policies, many don't have access to work permits. That means they're left at the whims of whatever social service or agency can provide them.

Dr. González: Yeah, and pretty quickly, the social safety nets in these places became taxed as city officials, churches, and community agencies rushed to provide shelter, multilingual education, medical care and other social services to meet people's most basic needs.

Media Clip: Back in Denver, in a church basement in this self declared sanctuary city, a volunteer program aimed at giving migrants whatever they need. Free suitcases are handed over to be filled with toiletries, baby formula, diapers, shoes, clothing of all sizes, especially winter wear, anything they all need, young and old right now. Upstairs, more migrants are told how things work, how asylum works, public transit, how to get health care, education, a driver's license, an apartment, a job.

Dr. Barba: That meant a lot of money and resources going to serve a new population of people. Which left some city residents pretty upset and wondering why newcomers were getting this help when citizens were struggling amidst the country's economic woes. That's what happened in Chicago, where some residents questioned Mayor Brandon Johnson.

Media Clip: Brother Brandon, you have always been on the right side of history. That's why I campaigned for you, and that's why I voted for you. That's why I encouraged others to vote for you, because I knew, and I felt in my heart, you would be on the right side of history, and that meant including your people, descendants of enslaved Africans. Brother, you got to stop the buses from coming in. You just got to stop the buses coming in because it's hurting your people. I'm talking about descendants of enslaved Africans. We're hurting!

Dr. González: So in some cities, city officials began to rethink whether they could actually meet the promises of their sanctuary city status. In Denver and Chicago, elected officials began planning to close migrant shelters and put a limit on the amount of local support asylum seekers could receive. And most forcefully, in New York City, where officials fear that they'd be spending over a billion dollars to support migrants. Mayor Eric Adams threatened that this crisis posed an existential threat to the city.

Media Clip (Adams): Let me tell you something, New Yorkers [Reporter Voiceover: The migrant crisis taking on a new tone.] Never in my life have I had a problem that I did not see an ending to. I don't see an ending to this. I don't see an ending to this. This issue will destroy New York City.

Dr. González: I mean, Adams is really taking that argument pretty far there. A city's sanctuary status could literally destroy it. I mean, come on. And then just to add more kindling to the fire, well, enter those Republican governors we discussed earlier in our episode

Dr. Barba: And, smelling blood in the water, Governors DeSantis in Florida and Abbott in Texas began bussing thousands of people to the very cities that were already over-taxed in trying to support migrants and asylum seekers.

Media Clip (Speaker 1): Local officials whose communities are being overwhelmed by hordes of illegal immigrants, who are being dropped off by the Biden administration. Texas is providing charter buses to send these illegal immigrants, who have been dropped off by the Biden administration, to Washington, DC.

Media Clip (Speaker 2): New tonight, Governor Abbott's office announced they are now sending migrants from the border to Chicago. First bus arrived tonight at the city's Union Station. Governor says Chicago will be a new drop off location after sending previous buses to Washington, DC and New York City.

Media Clip (Speaker 3): This morning, we're hearing from the New York City Mayor's office as the first bus of migrants from Texas arrived there yesterday. Governor Greg Abbott directed the state to charter buses from the border, saying Texas is overwhelmed by the Biden administration border policies.

Media Clip (Speaker 4): Dozens of migrants are in Southern California this morning after being bused in from the border by the governor of Texas.

Media Clip (Speaker 5): Eyewitness News reporter, Tony Cabrera, is live in Chinatown with the latest. Good morning, Tony. Texas Governor Greg Abbott has confirmed within the last hour that he is in fact sending a bus of migrants here to Philadelphia. Abbott says that bus will arrive at 30th Street station tomorrow morning.

Dr. Barba: Now, to be clear, the federal government really failed to offer a structural response to the growing number of migrants making their way to the US.

Dr. González: Yeah, definitely. There's plenty of failure to go around here. The Biden administration provided no national coordinated response, leaving this issue to border states and then to individual cities where migrants were arriving.

Dr. Barba: And, as always, when it comes to immigration policy, credit or lack of credit, where it's due, Congress has lived up to our lowest expectations. It has continually failed to craft any form of comprehensive legislation to address what is a real human crisis. Absent a federal response, either from the White House or from Congress, all of these so-called sanctuary cities have been functionally left to fend for themselves.

Dr. González: Yeah. Lloyd, I mean, that's certainly our prognosis, as well as that of many of the mayors of these cities, and that includes Mayor Brandon Johnson in Chicago.

Media Clip (Johnson and reporter): Keep in mind that the migrant crisis, this international, global crisis really requires a federal resource response. [Reporter: What if the federal government doesn't help you?] Well, clearly they haven't thus far. [Reporter: But is that sustainable? Because you've said it isn't.] Well, I think you've answered it- no, it's not sustainable! The Congress does have to act. And if they do not act, this is going to continue to cause the type of chaos that the governor of Texas wants to do.

Dr. González: And so it remains an open question... What does the future of sanctuary look like in today's America? And what does that future look like, not just in these so-called sanctuary cities but, perhaps more importantly, in the houses of worship that birthed the movement in the 1980s?

Dr. Barba: Well, we might not have an end-all answer to the big question, but as we close this final episode, one thing is clear: Sanctuary will continue to inform our national politics, especially in the realm of immigration policy.

Dr. González: All right, Lloyd, now most of our episode today has focused on Trump and the Republican Party. And rightly so, as they've made attacking immigrants and any form of mercy towards migrants and refugees central to their political project. But what about Trump's opponent in the upcoming presidential election? Well, MAGA's political attacks have already been extremely successful in moving the Democratic Party to the right.

Dr. Barba: Since Kamala Harris took center stage as her party's candidate for president in mid-summer, Democrats have done their best to shore up what many political pundits consider the party's biggest political weakness: immigration. Trump and his vice presidential pick, Ohio Senator JD Vance, have portrayed Harris as the Biden administration's "border czar," or as the person most responsible for the so-called 'border crisis.'

Media Clip (Vance): Remember, on her very first day in office, she and Biden suspended deportations, they stopped construction of the border wall, and they re-implemented catch-and-release. The border crisis is a Kamala Harris crisis. Let's not ever let her ever forget...

Dr. Barba: And even if the accusation is factually wrong- "borders czar" isn't even a real thing! The attacks have been effective.

Dr. González: Yep, and the response from Harris and Democrats has been to show that they're actually getting really tough on the border.

Media Clip (Harris "Tougher" Ad): Kamala Harris has spent decades fighting violent crime. As a border-state prosecutor, she took on drug cartels and jailed gang members for smuggling weapons and drugs across the border. As vice president, she backed the toughest border control bill in decades. And as president, she will hire thousands more border agents and crack down on fentanyl and human trafficking. Fixing the border is tough. So is Kamala Harris. I'm Kamala Harris and I approve this message.

Dr. Barba: Oh man, you hear this ad and you walk away thinking that the border is a cesspool of crime, gangs, weapons, human trafficking. I mean, how could you tell the difference from how Republicans talk about that space? Democrats might not be outright demonizing immigrants and talking about poisoning the nation's blood, but...

Dr. González: Yeah, right, Lloyd. And if this is the central thrust of Democrat's new messaging on immigration, well, where are the immigrants as people?

Dr. Barba: Mhm. Gone are the days of talking about comprehensive immigration reform and pathways to citizenship. This is about shoring up the political flank and showing that Democrats aren't pushovers on border security.

Dr. González: Now, in other words, the party's messaging draws from the idea that Americans, again, are demonstrating a hunger for the anti-immigrant politics that dominated the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Dr. Barba: It's a pretty stark departure from where Democrats were after Trump's first election, when they were much more willing to #resist family separation and mass deportations.

Dr. González: All right, so we have one party that wants to end sanctuary practices. And another that is pretty ambivalent about them. So what power does the concept of sanctuary still have in our society?

Dr. Barba: It's a big question, one that brings us back to our first episode, and our discussion about the potential counterweight offered by a more progressive understanding of faith.

Dr. González: For most Americans, religion and politics can only lead down one path, and it's one that will constrain people's rights and take us back generations. Restrictions on a woman's ability to control her reproductive rights, the Ten Commandments displayed in public schools, and even white Christian nationalism. These are the ideas that dominate our political conversation.

Dr. Barba: But sanctuary activists have a much different understanding of how their faith grounds their politics. To them the scriptural injunction to welcome the stranger, to see the newcomer as a neighbor, to see that neighbor as our brother, and to then be our brother's keeper, that's what drives how we should relate to each other.

Dr. González: Yeah, and when the state refuses to abide by that guiding principle, sanctuary activists argue that we have an obligation to step up and, well, do something. So we're left asking today, in light of all of these attacks on the guiding ethos of sanctuary, does sanctuary's guiding underlying ethic- challenging state power, and doing it through scriptural justifications- still hold weight in our current political climate? And what will sanctuary activists do when the protection of the Church no longer holds? In other words, if the state continues to criminalize the very concept of Christian and Jewish mercy, as they first did in the 1980s sanctuary trials, and continue to do so today in their persecution and prosecution of sanctuary communities, how will people of faith respond?

Dr. Barba: Well, perhaps our listeners won't be surprised by this, Sergio, but in spite of all these challenges, we still believe in the power of sanctuary to achieve immigration justice.

Dr. González: You're exactly right, Lloyd. We still believe in the power of sanctuary because of its capacity to educate a broader public through public consciousness raising. And it's through that collective process of learning that we can begin to build an alternative vision for migrant justice. As the Tucson Ecumenical Council declared in the 1980s quote, "individuals can resist injustice, but only communities can choose to do justice." Functionally, providing sanctuary is the congregational analog of the baptism of individual Christians: an initiating act of incorporation into the covenant people.

Dr. Barba: We still believe in the power of sanctuary because it encourages coalition building through a shared belief, grounded in faith, that we must welcome the stranger. It does so through the concept of accompaniment, or walking the road together, with those who have been pushed to the margins of society. As Ignatius Bau, a legal advisor to the 1980s movement in California noted, accompaniment creates a sense of solidarity between people of faith that has the power to transcend national borders. It's a solidarity, he states, based upon a partnership of shared struggle, rather than any prior models of dependency and condescension.

Dr. González: And we still believe in the power of sanctuary, because it teaches us that one's faith must be capacious and humble enough to reflect on human crises, as uncomfortable and inconvenienced as that might make us. But then, that reflection requires us to move. So rather than assuming we have all the answers, sanctuary invites us to observe, judge, and then act. But we have to make sure that we act. I mean, to put it another way, or at least how the Chicago Religious Task Force put it in 1987, we have to model Jeremiah. When Jeremiah called for a just peace in Judah, he was branded a traitor and faced death threats. His allegiance, however, was to the God of history. Like the prophets before him, Jeremiah was an advocate for justice. His heart quote, "like a burning fire shut up in his bones." He was willing to denounce political leaders in his time who built their upper rooms with injustice and who gained their wealth at the expense of the poor. Ultimately, he was more concerned with speaking truth and standing with the oppressed than alienating his listeners. So when we see asylum seekers being denied refuge at the border, when we see our neighbors being ripped out of their homes, when we see children locked up in cages...we have to act.

Dr. Barba: We still believe in the power of sanctuary because, when we act, we know we're doing so with a long and storied tradition of offering Christian hospitality and safe harbor to those in need. Since the early days of the church, whenever vulnerable people have been at their wit's end, sanctuary has offered a clear articulation of mercy and care. It shows us the road, well trodden by people of faith for generations, a road on which people have offered genuine Christian hospitality in the past, whether it was during the biblical era of Cities of Refuge or in the 19th century with the Underground Railroad.

Dr. González: We still believe in Sanctuary because, as the Tucson leader, Jim Corbett, suggested back in the 1980s, sanctuary allows the church to discover what it means to be the church. More broadly, sanctuary can mature the faith of the individual who decides to enter into dialog with the collective. I mean, believe it or not, it's actually possible to change your understanding of how faith can inform how you understand immigration. And that means that you can come to see, with open eyes, how the supposed Law and Order position on this particular issue, selectively pedaled by the religious right, doesn't speak for all Christians.

Dr. Barba: We still believe in the power of sanctuary because, to borrow from Jewish organizers in the 1980s, sanctuary is an example of "tikkun olam" or "repairing the world." So many people of faith are willing to sacrifice for their neighbors in the name of repairing the world, or pursuing unselfish justice, because that is what their God commands them to do.

Dr. González: And finally, we still believe in the power of sanctuary because of its capacity proven time and time again to challenge state power on behalf of those Jesus called the "least of these." At the border between church and state lies this powerful tradition, one that offers a clear rebuke to unjust laws that make millions of people feel like aliens and strangers in the place they want to call home.

Dr. Barba: And so we'll leave you with the words of Sister Darlene Nicgorski, who felt so strongly about the power of sanctuary that she was willing to stand trial for asylum seekers in 1985, engaging in what she called "a conspiracy of love."

Dr. González: This is what Sister Darlene had to say, "We are in for the long haul. Faithfulness is the virtue of our day. The faithfulness of walking alongside, following, whatever the costs."

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.