Sanctuary in a Trumpist Context: Creating Spaces of Democratic Exception

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/10659129211052493
• Published date: 01 December 2022
• Date: 01 December 2022
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Political Research Quarterly

2022, Vol. 75(4) 1173–1185

© The Author(s) 2021

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DOI: 10.1177/10659129211052493

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Sanctuary in a Trumpist Context: Creating

Spaces of Democratic Exception

Kathleen R. Arnold

1

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Abstract

This paper f‌irst identif‌ies the necessity for sanctuary as a form of protest against the discretionary and often absolute

forms of power shaping the current immigration system, particularly as it affects undocumented immigrants. Although

the plenary power doctrine has removed legal personhood from immigrants at the federal level since the late 1800s,

immigrants’rightlessness and vulnerability to detention and deportation has grown since Trump was elected. It dis-

tinguishes between a sanctuary city and church-based sanctuary, holding that the latter f‌its more ancient conceptions of

sanctuary. Faith-based sanctuary is also more radical than sanctuary cities, challenging sovereign power over immigra nts

who are largely rightless. The discourse of “earned citizenship”holds that undocumented immigrants must makeamends

to U.S. society and pay back taxes as well as earning the trust of the American public. In contrast, church-based sanctuary

exposes the faulty logic of such claims, educating the public about the undocumented individual’s existing ties to the

community and his/her contributions. In humanizing the legal non-person, church-based sanctuary practices explode

conventional binary between citizen and foreigner, problematizing claims of merit on the one side and lack of de-

servingness or alien status on the other.

Keywords

sanctuary, immigration, refugees, Constitution, plenary power, protest

As President Trump took off‌ice in 2017, issued travel

bans, temporarily suspended DACA (Deferred Action for

Childhood Arrivals), and rescinded TPS (temporary

protected status) for signif‌icant numbers of people, im-

migrant sanctuary became a subject of mainstream dis-

cussion (see Kroll-Zaidi 2020;Lasch, et al. 2018).

Advocacy for sanctuary has increased as each change, or

threat of change, has inspired fear of forced removal,

economic hardship, and the breakup of families and

communities. The Trump administration’s measures

generated concerns regarding not only undocumented

individuals, but also refugee petitioners and legal per-

manent residents (see Bosniak 2018;Motomura 2018). In

particular, there were concerns that resident foreigners

would be blocked from re-entry when traveling for hol-

idays and/or that despite their visas, status could be more

easily stripped away. Although Biden’sf‌irst months have

signaled hopeful change, the conditions driving sanctuary

measures remain, exacerbated by the spread of COVID-19

in detention centers.

As many have discerned, immigration policy allows

for a highly discretionary and often arbitrary set of pol-

icies and enforcement, which many think “sanctuary”will

challenge (see Heeren 2015;Kanstroom 2007;Motomura

2018;Wadhia 2015). Because of the recent interest in this

subject, I would like to explain the two related and yet

distinct forms of sanctuary: sanctuary localities and faith-

based sanctuary, occurring in a house of worship (see

Lasch, et al. 2018;Preston 2017;Villazor and Cuison,

2009, 576n20). They are each important and unique forms

of protest and together, challenge the highly discretionary

and historically unjust deployment of sovereign authority

in matters of immigration. The f‌irst form—welcoming or

sanctuary localities, which I will call “sanctuary locali-

ties”for simplicity’s sake (see Arrocha 2021;Hoye 2020,

85; Lasch et al. 2018, 1710)—reinstates a system that

upheld the personhood rights of the 14th Amendment for

all state residents up through 1996 (see Varsanyi 2008).

1

That is, they treat resident foreigners as legally

1

DePaul University, Chicago, IL, USA

Corresponding Author:

Kathleen R. Arnold, DePaul University, 990 W Fullerton Ave, Chicago,

IL 60614, USA.

Email: karnol14@depaul.edu