North American Border: Sanctuary Cities, Self Representation, and Economics

International Worker’s Day, early morning blockade outside ICE headquarters in San Francisco 2017. Photo: Peg Hunter

Important Update

 This past Thursday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that his government would allow refugee claimants to cross the border and spend 14 days in isolation. Just one day after this announcement, the federal government unexpectedly reversed this policy. The federal government announced yesterday that individuals crossing the border irregularly, including refugee claimants, would not be allowed into Canada and will be returned to the United States (Amnesty, 2020). Organizations like Amnesty International have condemned this change in policy stating that “Canadian government is now violating our important international obligations to refugees, at a time when concern about their vulnerability to COVID-19 mounts worldwide”(Amnesty, 2020). The U.S. has similarly closed its northern and southern borders. Amnesty International has decried the decision to close the US/Mexico border to refugees, highlighting that it will only deepen a grave human rights crisis. Additionally, migrant workers have been thrown under the bus with regards to new border policies regarding COVID-19, stating that Canada would be indefinitely closing its borders to non-residents. In these unprecedented and uncertain times, it is important to consider the precarity refugees, asylum seekers, undocumented people and migrants face – especially in times of emergencies.

Refugee perspectives/stories/agency

Sanctuary history in the U.S.

US sanctuary practices can be described as comprising relatively cohesive, faith-based national movements, in contrast to sanctuary practices outside of the US. For example, sanctuary practices in Canada are not found on a national scale and are more socially and geographically detached and temporally limited incidents. As well, Canadian sanctuary practices are not closely associated with the theological imperative of sanctuary unlike the US movements that are exemplary of religious activism against the state. While most sanctuary movements in the US found origin through Christian churches, supporters were quick to note that concepts of sanctuary exist in most faith traditions. Still, US sanctuary movements are “not founded in ancient theological traditions of hospitality or the Old Testament traditions of cities of refuge; rather, the sanctuary movement is more properly understood in the tradition of civil disobedience” (Lippert and Rehaag, 34). Churches are said to engage in this act of civil disobedience largely because of inadequate appeal procedures and human suffering not addressed by those procedures. Many justifications articulated by supporters in sanctuary movements underscore the moral imperative of their work as “helping the weakest” even if it meant going against state laws as “God’s laws are superior”. The argument for building sanctuaries has been that the refugee system is often unhearing, uncaring, and unaccountable to vulnerable people in need of protection as it is founded in systemic discrimination and racism. Sanctuaries for refugees are therefore an expression of moral outrage at what was deemed a broken refugee system, and outrage at how their government handled deportees. Where the state was perceived to have failed to provide that protection, communities and frequently churches were portrayed as having stepped into this role, and, in doing so, claimed the higher moral ground. 

The first wave of Sanctuary Movement (SM) in the U.S. formed in response to the Refugee Act of 1980 and was primarily concerned with the plight of Central American refugees. During this time, violent wars raged in El Salvador and Guatemala (El Salvador had been engulfed by civil war since 1979, while in Guatemala, 11,000 people were killed in just 1983 alone). While the Act was supposed to be a more just version of the refugee policy already existing in the U.S., it proved to be quite the opposite. While it intended to establish a non-ideological standard for refugee and asylum determination, stating that a refugee was ‘any person’ who was ‘unable or unwilling to return to … that country because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution.’ In reality, someone fleeing a country friendly to the U.S. was less likely to gain asylum than someone fleeing an unfriendly country (such as one from the Soviet bloc), even if the harms suffered were the same. This led to refugees from El Salvador and Guatemala fleeing to the U.S. seeking political asylum were routinely rejected and deported. At its best, the Central American Sanctuary Movement is said to have involved over 400 sanctuary spaces that, together with 2000 supporting congregations, provided sanctuary to at least 3000 Central American refugees (Lippert and Rehaag, 31). 

New Sanctuary Movement (NSM) is known as a revival of the SM. It arose in response to the treatment of migrant workers and undocumented migrations from Mexico and South and Central America. Churches in a handful of U.S. cities hoped to unite faith-based groups in a push for immigration reform that would help undocumented migrants stave off deportation orders. This second wave of sanctuary movement was meant to “enable congregations to publicly provide hospitality and protection to a limited number of migrant families whose legal cases clearly reveal the contradictions and moral injustice of our current immigration system”(Lippert and Rehaag, 31). Supporters of sanctuary movements searched border areas for people in distress and also started a programme of setting up water stations in the desert. When asked about the legality of their actions, one leader of the movement stated: 

“ ‘We are doing nothing more than giving humanitarian aid to people in the desert who may be dying or in failing health. These people were in a life-or-death situation. It was a matter of saving lives. If they were caught by Border Patrol and sent back to their country in handcuffs, they were delivered to the death squads’ ” (Lippert and Rehaag, 35). 

For some migrants, sanctuary meant literal refuge – ICE (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement) is usually reluctant to enter churches to execute deportation orders while insisting on its right to do so. For instance, Rosa Ramirez (a pseudonym) and her family in the Kansas City area speak of their encounter with sanctuary being an actual safe haven: ‘I would feel safe in the church, but when I went out to drop off [my son] at work, I can’t describe the fear I felt’ (Lippert and Rehaag, 96). However, NSM went beyond ensuring physical sanctuary and focused more on providing a new means of telling the story of the human costs of US deportation policies. Undocumented immigrants who were generally told to avoid driving attention to their status, were more encouraged to to speak out publicly about their stories of seeking asylum and the failures of refugee system that hurt them and their families. In this way, NSM was able to offer a counter-narrative to dominant discourses on refugeedom of the time, as well as give concrete meaning to abstract and complex struggles. This allowed undocumented activists to voice their claims to legitimacy on topics like immigration policy. For example, Elvira Arellano, a Mexican immigrant who sought sanctuary in Adalberto United Methodist Church in Chicago in 2006 with her young son Saul (a US citizen), and became the most prominent spokesperson for the emerging immigrant rights movement, insisted on the importance of offering a counter-narrative from the unauthorized immigrant’s point of view: ‘I wanted to talk about what was happening in my case in particular and to call attention … to what is going on … and ask what we want to do about it. I wanted to give us a voice’ (Lippert and Rehaag, 94). 

Challenging and changing unjust laws 

“As an organization, we do not encourage people to break the law. We, do, though, advocate quite strongly that unjust laws be changed. In fact, we don’t think it’s right that honest people should have to die in the desert to try to find a job” – from SM movement supporter.

On the other hand, sanctuary movements directly challenged the discourse around the economic cost or benefit of resettling refugees. A response to the charge by authorities and opponents that the immigrants were simply migrant workers entering the US to find work was that they ‘were able to counter their argument with evidence of why the refugees were really coming here—because they were trying to save their lives, not make money” (Lippert and Rehaag, 31). Although supporters of sanctuary movements often appealed to accounts that depicted refugees as positive contributors to society, those appeals were made from a purely moralistic perspective that would portray the claims to their removal baffling and subsequently extend their outrage to the general public. There were frequent accounts of positive experiences with refugee claimants clearly intended to rebut negative stereotypes that practitioners felt were often portrayed in the media. 

Sanctuary Cities under Trump 

Only five days after his Inauguration, President Trump issued an executive order called “Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States”. This executive order specifically targets sanctuary cities, where “jurisdictions that willfully refuse to comply with 8 U.S.C. 1373 (addressing information sharing regarding immigration and citizenship status among government officials) are not eligible to receive Federal grants, except as deemed necessary for law enforcement purposes”(ACLU, 2018). Throughout 2017, several cities fought legal battles to halt the enforcement of 8 U.S.C 1373 on the grounds that it is unconstitutional (ACLU,2018). In 2018, the Department of justice sent a notice to 23 jurisdictions “demanding all documents reflecting guidance to law enforcement employees regarding all communication with DOJ, DHS,

and/or ICE”(ACLU, 2018). All of these jurisdictions have high populations of immigrants, including New York city and Los Angeles. In July 27, 2018 the district court issued

Permanent nationwide injunction barring the Attorney General from imposing the notice, access, and 8 U.S.C. 1373 compliance conditions on most jurisdictions (excluding Chicago) and the court also finds that 8 U.S.C. 1373 is unconstitutional (ACLU, 2018).

The Center for Immigration studies, a think tank devoted to research and policy analysis of the economic, social, demographic, fiscal, and other impacts of immigration on the United States, posts updated lists and map of current sanctuary counties, and cities: 

Current map of sanctuary counties, cities, and states as of Feb 5, 2020

Each sanctuary city, county or state has a description of their position of their detainer policy (which can be found if you hover your mouse over the location). For instance, Grand County, Colorado’s detainer policy will not honor ICE detainer. 

Self-representations of Refugees in Popular Media

As discussed in previous blog posts, refugees, asylum seekers, immigrants and undocumented people are often lumped into the same group in popular media. Refugees, asylum seekers, immigrants and undocumented people represent themselves within mainstream media and outside of it. Some self-representations of refugees engage with anti-refugee sentiments while others construct representations of themselves and their struggles outside of the narratives pushed on to them. 

The song titled Immigrants (We get the Job done) from the play Hamilton, involves a range of artists ( K’Naan,Snow tha Product, Riz Ahmed and Residente) that are all either immigrants, refugees, undocumented people themselves or are children of. The song describes immigrants as workers:

“And it’s, it’s really astonishing that in a country founded by immigrants

“Immigrant” has somehow become a bad word

…

I got one job, two job, three when I need them

I got five roommates in this one studio, but I never really see them

…

Who these fugees what did they do for me

But contribute new dreams.” (Genius, 2016)

The artists emphasise the economic benefits their communities have brought to their host countries. Rather than asserting their rights on the basis of their humanity, they engage with their own existence and the existence of their community on economic terms. 

In contrast, the song F*CK ICE 2 by Manny Sanchez unapologetically and comedically discusses the realities of being undocumented and being confronted with racial profiling. The song has recently gone viral on Tik Tok. The song describes community resistance to ICE raids and deportation: 

“Shout out to my mom serving beans and tortillas

…

F*ck ICE, b*tch, we sending shots, no tequila

Free all them kids, man, I can’t forget my tía

…

Shout out to my immigrants, I know they valiente

Chinga la migra, fuck deportation

‘Cause when I’m on the mic I represent all nations” (Genius, 2019)

 Manny Sanchez is able to represent himself without engaging with narratives pushed onto his community. The unapologetic nature of the song is resistance to the pressure to justify safety, and opportunity, for specific groups on economic terms. 

Economic cost/benefit

The economics of refuge-seeking is a complicated issue; while some view refugees as an economic burden, others point to refugees’ economic contributions to Canadian and American society. Others, however, have argued that decisions about refugee-hosting should be made independently of economics, given that refuge-seeking is primarily a humanitarian concern. Thus, in understanding the economics of refuge-seeking, it is important to both look at how refugees are perceived by the general population, as well as scholarly research that discusses the economic costs and benefits of refuge-seeking. 

An economic burden?

An analysis of political discourse in Canada and the United States reveals that ‘refugeedom’ and asylum-seeking are clearly perceived in terms of economics. Not only in Canada and the United States, but also elsewhere, refugees have been accused of being economic migrants claiming to be persecuted in order to gain entry; in 2008, for example, the UK’s Immigration and Border Minister Phil Woolas asserted that “‘most asylum seekers, it appears, are economic migrants’, as opposed to being genuine refugees fleeing persecution (Zimmermann, 335). The arrival of such individuals has been criticized, with US President Donald Trump stating in the 2016 Republican Party Convention that the arrival of such individuals has “produced lower wages and high unemployment for our citizens” (Borjas). Similarly, not only do opponents of refugee-hosting use economic justifications for their arguments, so too do proponents of refugee-hosting. As Dina Nayeri writes in her article “The ungrateful refugee: ‘We have no debt to repay,’” friends would use her contributions to American society as proof of the benefits of accepting refugees, “As if that’s proof that letting in refugees has a good, healthy return on investment” (Nayeri). 

In regards to concerns, media in Canada and the US has pointed out the cost of hosting asylum-seekers and refugees, with the City of Toronto alone having spent $64.5 million on emergency housing for refugees in 2017 and the province of Ontario recently demanding $200 million from the federal government for costs incurred relating to asylum-seekers arriving via non-official land entry points ( (Armstrong, “What governments spend on refugees”). The UNHCR also recognizes that refugee-hosting is not without cost. In the words of the UNHCR, “States that host refugees incur substantial financial costs, not least in paying salaries and meeting the other expenses of officials and members of the security services who are responsible for refugee-related tasks” (Executive Committee of the High Commissioner’s Programme). 

But it is equally important to remember the cost of strict border controls that stop to prevent refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants from entering. As the American Immigration Council wrote in 2019, the US federal government has spent approximately $330 billion on the agencies that carry out immigration enforcement since 2003 (“The Cost of Immirgration Enforcement and Border Security”). In October 2019, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in the US employed over 84,000 people in total (“The Cost of Immigration Enforcement and Border Security”). The cost of detaining migrants in detention centres is also relatively high; according to ICE’s 2018 budget, the average cost of maintaining one adult detention bed was $133.99 (Urbi). These high costs have led the government to look to private prisons, which can receive stipends from the federal government if their costs are lower than public detention centres (Urbi). Not only have strict controls on migration led to higher enforcement budgets, they have also taken an impact on jobs and the economy. In 2012, Alabama legislators passed one of the strictest immigration laws in the US making nearly all interactions with the state a test of one’s legal immigration status (McMahon). Which the state deemed the law as a way to fight unemployment, expecting that as undocumented immigrants left new jobs would be opened for US citizens, Trisha McMahon writes that as companies such as Alabama’s poultry processers could no longer find enough workers, leading them to import African and Haitian workers (McMahon). Similarly, strict immigration laws in Georgia resulted in $140 million in agricultural losses (McMahon). Laws such as those enacted in Alabama and Georgia in 2012 pose challenges for those seeking asylum whose status in the US has not yet been regularized. Whether one is in favour of stricter controls on immigration and refuge-seeking or whether one is in favour of welcoming more refugees, there is thus clearly a cost involved.

A Complex Reality

While those opposed to migration and consider refuge-seeking to be an economic threat often rely on the argument that there are a fixed number of jobs in the economy and that newcomers “just compete for a slice of the piece rather than helping the pie grow” (Kerr and Kerr), it is important to recognize that the reality surrounding refugee-hosting and the economy is more complex than it may seem. Similarly, while political discourse often portrays refugee-hosting as an economic burden, the economic consequences of refugee-hosting are actually more complex. In an article entitled “When Migrants Rule: The Legacy of Mass Migration on Economic Development in the United States,” Andrés Rodríguez-Pose and Viola von Berlepsch go beyond most studies on migration and refuge-seeking which look uniquely at the short-term effects of migration (p.645). Instead, they look at the long-term effects of migration beginning in the late 19th century and argue that “those places where migrants settled in large numbers are significantly better off than those that were relatively untouched by migration” (p. 645)

The UNHCR — while recognizing the cost of refugee-hosting (see Executive Committee of the High Commissioner’s Programme) — is also keen to point out the economic contributions that refugees bring to their host country. In an article entitled “Refugees are Good for Canada,” the UNHCR points out the economic contributions of refugees to Canada, such as the story of Ahmad Abed, a Syrian refugee who became an entrepreneur after founding a business called “Our Sock Shoppe” in Guelph, Ontario (“A Syrian refugee returns to entrepreneurial roots in Canada”). Beyond anecdotal evidence, research conducted by the Harvard Business Review shows that immigrants writ large tend to overcontribute to entrepreneurship than the U.S.-born population; while immigrants make up only 15% of the workforce, they represent a quarter of entrepreneurs (Kerr and Kerr). Research also casts doubt on the argument that refugees are primarily unskilled workers. As Aimee Chin and Kalena E. Cortes write, “refugees fall in the middle of the distribution of educational attainment among US immigrants” (Chin and Cortes, 603); this means that the average refugee hosted by the U.S has a level of educational attainment higher than that of family preference immigrants (Chin and Cortes, 603). 

Conclusions: The Pertinence of Economics in Refugee-Hosting?

It is therefore important to go beyond looking at simply the economic cost. While refugee-hosting is clearly seen as an economic issue in both Canada and the U.S., it is important to remember that refugees’ motivations are not primarily economic; as Christian Dustman et al. write, refugees are accepted for humanitarian reasons and “host countries tend not to have economic integration of the refugee migrants as their primary objective” (Dustmann et al., 501). Beyond economic arguments, one can also look to the cultural and social contributions of refugees; however, as Dina Nayeri writes, accepting refugees is a “basic human obligation,” as “It is the obligation of every person born in a safer room to open the door when someone in danger knocks.” In the 1951 Convention, which Canada has signed and to which the US has indirectly agreed to by ratifying the 1967 Protocol, the principle of non-refoulement prohibits states from expelling refugees against their will “to a territory where he or she fears threats to life or freedom,” irrespective of the economic burden accepting such a refugee would entail (UN General Assembly, 176).  Finally, it is important to remember that both Canada and the U.S. have a greater financial ability to host refugees than other countries. As Timothy J. Hatton points out, with approximately three-quarters of the world’s refugees remain in Asia and Africa, the “burden” of refugee-hosting still fails primarily with the world’s poorest countries (Hatton, 456). 

Despite concerns by Canada and the U.S. on the cost of hosting refugees, the financial cost of taking in refugees falls by and large outside of North America.

Discussion Questions:

• Should refuge-seeking be treated as an economic issue or should it be seen as solely a humanitarian one?
• How do economic concerns (such as the idea of refugees as an economic burden) influence the way refugees are such in public discourse?

Argument

When looking at the recent history of refuge-seeking along the Canadian and North American border, it is clear that this is a period in which the “human rights encounter,” as Itamar Mann would write, has been reduced and nearly eliminated. As Mann writes, “Comparable dynamics have also developed on the U.S.-Mexican border, where drones and other surveillance technologies have transformed the border into a much wider ‘borderland’” (Mann, p. 172). Likewise, rather than viewing the decision to accept migrants as stemming from a human rights commitment, this decision has instead been viewed in economic terms, with refugees and asylum-seekers either being viewed as an economic burden or as economic contributors who make Canada and the United States better places. The human rights encounter has also been weakened by a lack of understanding around who is arriving at the border; while non-Mexicans far outnumber the number of Mexicans apprehended at the U.S. southern border (https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/11/01/whats-happening-at-the-u-s-mexico-border-in-5-charts/), there remains a lack of understanding in the general population about who is arriving. Our research on the political stakes has shown that immigrants, migrants, refugees, and asylum-seekers have often been grouped together in discourse. Similarly, by looking at incidents from the Komagata Maru in 1914 to current political discourse, it is also safe to conclude that race and racism have played a role. Also of importance, the high budgets and over-bureaucratization of agencies such as ICE appear, as well as safe third country agreements, such as the treaty between Canada and the U.S. and the agreements recently signed by Trump and Central American countries, appear to greatly weaken the leverage that refugees and asylum-seekers have.

In North America, refugees, asylum seekers, and other migrants have consistently been understood from the lens of economics. The pressure to display the ability to contribute economically to the host country has made it increasingly more difficult for refugees or asylum seekers to assert rights on the basis of their humanity. However, despite these hurdles faced by refugees, asylum seekers and migrants that weaken the human rights encounter, there is still reason for migrants, refugees and asylum seekers to remain optimistic. From legal challenges to the work played by refugee advocacy groups, refugees have found ways to overcome these struggles. Susan Coutin’s research on the legalization strategies of Salvadoran migrants, for example, shows that rather than being passive victims, refugees and asylum-seekers have in fact taken action to secure their rights (Coutin).

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