Sacred Refuge: New Histories of the US Sanctuary Movement

Sanctuary has become one of the most powerful social and religious movements to push back against state power over the past 50 years, reemerging today at the center of national debates over immigration, religion, and political dissent. Following the election of Donald Trump, religious congregations, college campuses, and municipalities across the nation invoked sanctuary as a way to aid undocumented immigrants at risk of deportation and as a public act of resistance to harsh enforcement policies.

Sacred Refuge situates this ongoing struggle with its deeper historical context, situating it, for example, as emerging from movements to shield those seeking to avoid the Vietnam War, and examining how the earlier sanctuary movement of the 1980s, when congregations sheltered Central American asylum seekers fleeing US-backed civil wars, has informed today’s new movement. It also looks at how the particular religious framing of the sanctuary movement distinguishes it from other social movements, as well as highlighting a tendency toward "white saviorism" among churches aiming to help immigrants targeted for deportation.

Bringing together leading scholars in religion and immigration studies, the volume provides a far-reaching historical treatment of the U.S. sanctuary movement, uncovering new stories of congregational defiance, activist networks, and animating moral visions. Together, the contributions trace the movement’s complex origins, the struggles that shaped it, and its reverberations in contemporary campaigns. Timely and accessible, Sacred Refuge offers critical insights for scholars, activists, faith leaders, and readers seeking to understand how sanctuary became - and remains - a sacred refuge in America’s contested political landscape.