The Politics of Sanctuary

The Politics of Sanctuary examines sanctuaries as spaces where activists oppose what they see as an unjust restrictive regime trapping immigrants in conditions of legal liminality. Drawing on her fieldwork in New York City, Vojislava Filipcevic Cordes explores the politics of immigrant exclusions, and depicts how immigrants in sanctuary cities stake claims for their rightful presence. She argues for a more inclusive political life of expanded urban citizenship for undocumented immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees through the mechanisms of sanctuary practice. Blending a participant-observation case study of the immigrant-organized New Sanctuary Coalition with urban politics and theory, The Politics of Sanctuary also offers ideas for how ways sanctuary practices, supported by governance and social-service arrangements, can promote legitimate claims to immigrant urban membership and belonging.

Vojislava Filipcevic Cordes is Adjunct Associate Professor at the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) where she teaches Comparative Urban Policy. She is the author of New York in Cinematic Imagination.

The Politics of Sanctuary provides important new empirical data that both addresses marginalized exilic experience and sheds critical light on the politics of sanctuary, especially in an American context.

Benjamin Gonzalez O'Brien, San Diego State University:

The Politics of Sanctuary draws on extensive fieldwork with the New Sanctuary Movement in New York to center immigrants themselves in an exploration of the benefits and shortcomings of sanctuary as both a policy and movement. It will help to advance conversations among both policymakers and activists and represents a significant contribution to the existing literature.