An immigrant…or a terrorist? In a post September 11th world, undocumented residents in the United States faced the specter of deportation after being labeled a threat to national security. With anti-immigrant sentiment rising and legislation threatening to criminalize immigrants pending at the national and state level, faith activists again turned to sanctuary practices in the summer of 2006 to protect immigrants, migrants, and refugees. In this episode, Barba and González explore the development of the New Sanctuary Movement, a renewed effort to infuse the biblical injunction to welcome the stranger into the nation’s immigration politics. They chart how sanctuary activists borrowed from their predecessors while developing new strategies to confront what had become a well-oiled detention and deportation system, one that threatened millions of people who had called America home for decades.

Transcripts and Course Packs for Educators: https://linktr.ee/irmceorg

Additional Resources:

ABC’s Nightline, Sanctuary Cities (ca. 1985)
Freeman Reports - Stacy Merkt
Sisters of the Presentation Teleconference: Sanctuary, provided by California Revealed
The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, Episode on Sanctuary (1985)

Creators

Dr. Lloyd Daniel Barba is an Assistant Professor of Religion and Core Faculty in Latinx and Latin American Studies at Amherst College. He is the author of the award-winning book Sowing the Sacred: Mexican Pentecostal Farmworkers in California (Oxford University Press) and editor of Latin American and US Latino Religions in North America (Bloomsbury). His current research on the Sanctuary Movement includes A Refuge of Resistance: A History of the US Sanctuary Movement (under contract with Oxford University Press) and a volume edited with co-host Sergio González, Sacred Refuge: New Histories of the Sanctuary Movement (under contract with New York University Press).

Dr. Sergio M. González is Assistant Professor of History at Marquette University. He is the author of Strangers No Longer: Latino Belonging and Faith in Twentieth-Century Wisconsin (University of Illinois Press) and Mexicans in Wisconsin (Wisconsin Historical Society Press) and the co-editor of Faith and Power: Latino Religious Politics Since 1945 (New York University Press) with Felipe Hinojosa and Maggie Elmore. He is a co-founder and former organizer for the Dane Sanctuary Coalition and is currently completing a co-edited volume with co-host Lloyd Barba, Sacred Refuge: New Histories of the US Sanctuary Movement (under contract with New York University Press).

Funding for this series has been generously provided by the Henry Luce Foundation. Additional support was provided by the American Academy of Religion and Amherst College.

Executive Producer: Dr. Bradley Onishi (@bradleyonishi)

Audio Engineer: Scott Okamoto (@rsokamoto)

Production Assistance: Kari Onishi

Ep. 5 Part I: An Immigrant or a Terrorist?