Abstract

LERA, Estefanía Cruz. The spectrum of sanctuary cities in the United States: Contrasting the genesis and practices of proimmigrant local policies. Estud. front [online]. 2019, vol.20, e029.  Epub Dec 11, 2019. ISSN 2395-9134.  https://doi.org/10.21670/ref.1908029.

The so called sanctuary cities are actually the main source of opposition to anti-immigrant federal policies in the United States. The central argument of this cross case study is that the category of sanctuary agglutinates a set of laws, policies and informal practices of different nature, with varied political genesis and different degrees of insurgency. This article argues that in-deep study of the context framing each different kind of sanctuary city helps to explain the existence of a contrasting spectrum. With the aims to contrast them, three representative categories within the spectrum are analyzed: sanctuary of rhetoric, informal sanctuary, and welcoming sanctuary. This research concludes that the most representative sanctuary practices -the most contestative and with the highest degree of scalability- are linked to the need of the city to defend funding access and to protect its political autonomy; but also, they are linked to the capacity of organized migrants to make alliances with local political stakeholders.

Keywords : sanctuary cities; immigration policy; local migration in the US.