Abolitionist futures and the US sanctuary movement

Abstract

This article focuses on the histories, current challenges, and future directions of the sanctuary movement in the United States, which is becoming a central front of resistance to the administration of Donald Trump. The article is comprised of three main components. It discusses the history of the US sanctuary movement and situates it in the context of the rise of neoliberalism and its attendant escalating criminalisation, particularly since the 1980s, when the first iteration of the movement began. The article then discusses the limits of sanctuary, rooted in the movement’s liberal framework that risks reproducing the exclusions it has sought to dismantle. It nevertheless argues for the importance of sanctuary in opposing the Trump regime, while advocating that the movement adopt a more radical framework and solidarity-organising strategies inspired by the prison abolition movement.