In New York, faith-based groups prepare for ICE pushing farther into city

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The contentious U.S. deportation system has long been criticized for its disproportionate impact on Black and Brown immigrants. In the 1980s, an interfaith social justice movement emerged to protect undocumented refugees across the U.S. This effort drew its inspiration from the Underground Railroad, the extensive abolitionist network that helped enslaved Africans escape bondage, and became the basis of current sanctuary cities nationwide.

The current opposition to President Donald Trump’s wielding of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has only continued in recent weeks, as protesters once again took to the streets for another ‘No Kings’ Day demonstration on March 28.

This is especially apparent for thousands of travelers that have had to uneasily deal with ICE agents stationed at airports amid the partial government shutdown over Department of Homeland Security funding. All this as the number of deaths in immigration detentions centers or while in ICE custody is markedly increasing. The fight against ICE

On the ground in New York City, faith-based organizations have been doggedly preparing for a similar “incursion” of ICE and federal law enforcement, as seen in Minnesota. Protestors continue to speak out against the “state-sanctioned” shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good. Their demonstrations also remember others who have died at the hands of ICE agents over the past year, including Keith Porter in California and Silvero Villegas Gonzalez in Illinois.

“People’s lives are already on the line,” said Rev. Dr. Chloe Breyer, executive director at the Interfaith Center of New York. “I think the idea that we are exempt from the hate and cruelty that’s out there because we’re people of faith is quite the opposite. The calling we have to try and stand up, and stand with the vulnerable in our community…we are not guaranteed that we won’t be betrayed.”

Breyer said, while circumstances are different from the 1980s movement, it’s clear that the Underground Railroad models being used to protect immigrants are alive and well. The Interfaith Center is strongly advocating for the passage of the New York 4 All Act, which is legislation that would stop the collusion between local cops and ICE. This would extend the sanctuary declaration across New York as opposed to just a handful of counties.

“Faith communities are stepping up in real and tangible ways to support our immigrant neighbors, continuing a long tradition of faith-based solidarity and immigrant justice. They are hosting Know Your Rights trainings, building rapid response networks, and opening their doors as spaces of safety, care, and connection,” said Councilmember Shahana Hanif, who was born to Bangladeshi parents and is the first Muslim woman to be elected to the council.

Hanif recently hosted an interfaith immigration summit at a local synagogue to share resources for houses of worship against ICE. “In the face of fear and uncertainty, our faith leaders are choosing to organize, protect, and show up for one another,” she continued. “This is what solidarity looks like today, and it is how we build a city where every New Yorker can live with dignity and security.”

Rt. Rev. Matthew F. Heyd, 17th Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New York, added in a statement: “From vigils, to funding legal defense efforts, to calling on our leaders to stand up to federal immigration authorities, we are dedicated to creating safety and reclaiming our shared humanity with our immigrant communities. In this time of increasing fear and chaos, we remain steadfast in the belief that human dignity is non-negotiable.”

New York City as a ‘Sanctuary’

Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty famously welcomed over 12 million mostly European immigrants from 1892 to 1954. But in New York City’s 400 year history, it has always been home to immigrants of all kinds going all the way back to before its founding in the 17th century. Now its mayor, Zohran Mamdani, an immigrant himself, has vowed to protect fellow immigrant New Yorkers.

While there isn’t a legal designation for NYC as a sanctuary when it comes to undocumented immigrants, there are several policies in place that aim to provide public services regardless of immigration status and limit cooperation with federal immigration officers. These policies mean federal officers are banned from certain spaces, like houses of worship, schools, and city hospitals; and aren’t supposed to enter private spaces without a judicial warrant. Unfortunately that leaves many vulnerable to detainment in certain areas, like the federal courthouse in Manhattan or during ICE check-ins.

The city also has a right-to-shelter law, enacted under the Callahan vs. Carey consent decree in 1984, that essentially established the five boroughs as a “sanctuary for the unhoused.” Republican-led states put thousands of migrants and asylum seekers on buses and flights to cities with these types of laws as a political stunt in 2022.

“So when the buses [with migrants and asylum seekers] first started arriving at Port Authority, it was really the groups on the ground that were meeting them. We began to try to resource,” said Breyer. She added that her organization mobilized against anti-immigrant rhetoric during Trump’s first term in 2016.

The right to shelter law faced significant challenges due to the influx of new arrivals from several countries, since it was interpreted that those arriving qualified for the same services as the city’s existing homeless population. Former Mayor Eric Adams was determined to modify and repeal right-to-shelter in 2023.

1980s Faith-Based Sanctuary Movement

Breyer is a firm believer that providing sanctuary, which in the biblical sense meant refuge in a church, is a key component of immigrant justice as well as a principle of most religions.

“For me, sanctuary is something that is the cornerstone, not only of Christianity, where we have a long tradition of offering safe haven to people but also across faith traditions,” said Breyer. “This notion of it being close to hospitality…the sense that we are called to be responsible for our neighbors and for the stranger.”

This idea of safe haven for the vulnerable as the core of religious activism was most encapsulated in the 1980s Sanctuary Movement. The movement started in 1981 under former President Ronald Reagan. It began with a few primarily Hispanic-led churches in western states, like Arizona and California, that took in illegal refugees fleeing violent civil wars from their home countries in El Salvador and Guatemala. At the time, the U.S had the Refugee Act of 1980 in place.

“Offering unsanctioned refuge, however, amounted to, let’s be clear, civil disobedience since harboring and transporting undocumented immigrants violated federal law,” said Lloyd D. Barba, assistant professor of Religion and core faculty in Latinx and Latin American Studies at Amherst College.

By 1985, over 500 churches and synagogues were active members of the sanctuary network. Institutions like La Iglesia de Nuestra Señora la Reina de Los Ángeles, or The Church of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels, in Los Angeles provided shelter to refugees that were threatened with deportation. Santa Barbara became a sanctuary stronghold for refugees with local groups, like the Jewish Congregation B’nai B’rith and the Unitarian Society, pushing back against federal authorities.

The New ‘Underground Railroad’

Frustrated with how massive the Sanctuary Movement had become, the government sent U.S Immigration and Naturalization Service and FBI spies to infiltrate churches in a ten-month investigation called, Operation Sojourner. This led to the sanctuary trials of 1985 and 1986 in which eight organizers were convicted, said Barba.

In response, the sanctuary network came to be known as the “overground railroad” or the new underground railroad. Despite the risk of arrests and convictions, organizers created the “Freedom Train” or a caravan of safe houses and churches hiding Central American refugees, moving them towards Canada through the Midwest, Chicago, and Vermont. Sometimes refugees would change their identities, said Barba.

“Many within the sanctuary movement understood the English Americas to be a land of sanctuary,” said Barba, in his talk at University of California, Santa Barbara in 2025. “A place to flee from every form of oppression and persecution. No precedent in American history evoked such inspiring stories of sanctuary as did the 19th century underground railroad for fugitive slaves.”

The Sanctuary Movement also used the images of civil rights and religious figures, like El Salvadoran Archbishop Óscar Romero, who was assassinated while offering mass at a hospital in 1980.

Eventually, houses of worship began housing asylum seekers and hoping to sway public opinion, often by encouraging those seeking sanctuary to speak publicly about their experiences to congregations. “The sanctuary movement after all had no legal basis upon which to declare sanctuary,” said Barba. “Houses of worship became protective spaces as both a threat was ritually identified in the testimonios, [those who testified to human rights violations], and a sacred demarcation was pronounced in the sanctuary declaration. … Refugees made clear why their stories needed to be told.”

Los Angeles was the first city to pass a sanctuary policy in 1979. As did Berkeley and San Francisco in 1985, in a “landmark resolution that became the basis for many other Sanctuary City declarations.” More recently, California declared itself the first “Sanctuary State” in 2017, as forceful deportation of the undocumented and anti-immigrant rhetoric over the next several decades continued.