The roots and branches of the sanctuary movement
“We weren’t trying to break the law. We were offering humanitarian assistance.”
Alexia Salvatierra is a Lutheran pastor who has worked on issues of social justice and immigration policy for over 30 years. She leads the Welcoming Congregations/Guardian Angels Network for the Southwest California Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. From 2000 to 2011 she worked for the California office of Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice. CLUE was part of the New Sanctuary Movement, in which congregations around the country accompanied immigrant workers and their families facing deportation.
How do you define sanctuary?
The root of the meaning comes from the reference in Numbers 35 to cities of refuge. Numbers 35 concerns a prescription for dealing with a situation in which someone violated the law but where the punishment for the violation was not just. It was cruel and unusual punishment, to use modern language.
