Sanctuary’s Insurgent Histories: To Deliberately Impede and Intentionally Obstruct

From the 1980s “New Underground Railroad” to Elvira and post-Trump 1.0 abolitionist struggles, migrants and other activists have turned to sanctuary to refuse immobility and displacement. These practitioners prompt us to reimagine this tradition not as a singular place of protection, such as a church or a city, but rather as an insurgent practice that shelters people as they traverse militarized routes and refuse the criminalization of their movements.