Sanctuary Cities and Republican Liberty

• Author: J. Matthew Hoye
• Published date: 01 March 2020
• DOI: 10.1177/0032329219892362
• Date: 01 March 2020
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0032329219892362

Politics & Society

2020, Vol. 48(1) 67 –97

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DOI: 10.1177/0032329219892362

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Article

Sanctuary Cities and

Republican Liberty

J. Matthew Hoye

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Abstract

What are sanctuary cities? What are the political stakes? The literature provides

inadequate answers. Liberal migration theorists offer few insights into sanctuary

city politics. Critical migration scholars primarily address the relationship between

sanctuary cities and political activism, a small part of the phenomenon. The historical

literature examines continuities between 1970s sanctuary church activism and

contemporary sanctuary cities, confusing what is essential to sanctuary churches and

what is only sometimes associated with sanctuary cities. Together these approaches

obscure more than they reveal. This article suggests a republican account of sanctuary

cities. Reconstructing American migration politics from the colonial era onward

shows that sanctuary cities have roots in both the colonial republican revolt and

the republican principle of freedom as nondomination. That reconstruction reveals

much about both sanctuary cities and the federal government’s long-running assault

on them. The resulting robust analytical framework clarifies what is at stake in the

politics of sanctuary cities: federal sovereignty in migration politics specifically and

republican liberty in migration politics generally.

Keywords

sanctuary cities, migration ethics, republicanism, nondomination, liberalism, radical

democracy

Corresponding Author:

J. Matthew Hoye, Faculty of Social Sciences, VU University Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1105, Amsterdam,

1081 HV, The Netherlands.

Email: matthewhoye@gmail.com

892362PASXXX10.1177/0032329219892362Politics & SocietyHoye

research-article2019

68 Politics & Society 48(1)

What are sanctuary cities? What are the political stakes with regard to them? Neither

the theoretical nor historical literature provides an adequate account of the first ques-

tion, and, as a result, the second remains unanswerable. Mainstream liberal migration

scholarship rarely takes up the topic. Recognizing the analytical deficiencies of liber-

alism, the more critical migration literature usually navigates sanctuary politics

through theories of civil disobedience, “acts of citizenship,” or, broadly speaking,

radical democracy. But these critiques are limited insofar as activism (however under-

stood) is only a small part of contemporary sanctuary politics. The historical research

is similarly limited. It is often claimed that the historical roots of sanctuary cities are

found in the sanctuary church politics of the 1970s and 1980s. There certainly are

continuities between sanctuary church activism and contemporary sanctuary city poli-

tics, but they are, again, only a small part of the story, and they belie crucial substan-

tive differences. The problems are mutually confounding; the particular historical

framing supports the particular theoretical critique, and vice versa. The best accounts

offer only partial and in many ways misleading critiques of sanctuary cities. Prima

facie, there is a significant gap in our understanding. Sanctuary cities define the jurid-

ical-political lives of at least 11 million irregular migrants living in the United States

today and affect many more of the citizens living alongside them.1

I make three arguments. The first is historical. As will be shown, sanctuary politics

are often situated within a two-stage/four-decade descriptive frame, in which the sanc-

tuary church movement of the 1980s was followed and expanded by sanctuary city

politics. That framing is based on apparent historical and political continuities, but

appearances are misleading. I will argue that sanctuary cities can be shown to be

grounded in constitutional provisions, theories, institutions, and norms tracing back to

the colonial era, which manifest as a mode of politics categorically different from that

of sanctuary churches. That is to say, the two-stage/four-decade sanctuary church/city

historical framework is inadequate, nominal, and misleading. A four-century perspec-

tive is necessary.

The second argument is theoretical and analytical. It is that sanctuary cities

should be understood not in terms of liberal or radical democratic theory but in terms

of republicanism. Sanctuary cities should be understood specifically in the context

of what neorepublicans call social and political nondomination. The third argument

is normative and raises the question of the stakes behind the discussion of sanctuary

cities—stakes occluded by historical and theoretical errors. Taking a long view in

the republican perspective reveals that the stakes are high in their legal and consti-

tutional implications and bear on the freedoms of all citizens. I argue that the legiti-

macy of the plenary power doctrine—the juridical basis of the federal government’s

claim to sovereign prerogative in migration governance—is challenged by contem-

porary sanctuary city politics. So too are the principles of republican liberty related

to the unchecked power of the federal government, which pertain to citizens and

aliens alike.

I develop these arguments in tandem through a historical reconstruction of

American migration politics from the colonial era onward, focusing on critical

junctures that bea r on the politics of sanctuary cities today. I begin by sketching

the present state of sanctuary politics and the state of the scholarly art and