Below is my column in today's edition of the Grand Haven Tribune.
As one would respect in our day and age, people immediately jumped to their respective sides on the question before they had a chance to see what actually was going on and what it would actually entail. Like so many hot button issues, the word “sanctuary” has become a polarizing concept for folks. It’s like other terms, such as “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” “pro-life vs. pro-choice,” or “gun-safety vs gun-rights” – the second the phrase is uttered the battle lines are drawn and the ability for curious inquirer evaporates.
The first and most important thing that everyone needs to be aware of is that, despite what some people claimed online, neither the HRC nor the City Council have plans to make Grand Haven a sanctuary city. (That rumor became so pervasive that the city had to issue a statement clarifying matters.) There are people in our city who think the question is worth exploring, so they sent that request in and the natural first place for it to go to be vetted was the HRC. That way they could study the question and give their own recommendation to the elected City Council.
That shouldn’t scare anyone or make people angry. In a participatory democracy, all citizens should have a voice, should be able to ask their government bodies and committees to study questions and ideas. Having the conversation is a good thing, no matter where you hope the conversation will lead.
(And, by the way, the actual conversation at their meeting was less than five minutes long before they all agreed they needed to do more research so they could have a good response to those who asked about this question).
In the hopes of that conversation being a bit more productive, no matter what our City Council or residents decide, there are a few things that might be helpful to remember.
First, the idea of sanctuary cities comes from the Bible. In ancient Israel, there were six “Cities of Refuge” established by God himself in Numbers 35. The Hebrew word is “miklat” and it can be translated as refuge or asylum. If someone killed another person unintentionally, they could flee to those cities and be kept safe until there could be a just trial to determine guilt.
Starting in the 5th Century, churches became places of refuge and sanctuary under canon law, meaning that if someone was accused of a crime but was able to reach a church, they could claim sanctuary and avoid being arrested immediately. (Fun fact, this is the reason why many churches – including my own – have their doors painted red; it’s a symbol of sanctuary.) During the time of the reformation, as the Roman empire gave way to the rise of the nation-state, sanctuary laws were gradually abolished and modern protections like the right to due process were instead put into place.
In the early 1980s, the idea of churches as sanctuary was revived because of the many Central American refugees who were fleeing civil conflict. Obtaining asylum (a recognized right for refugees under international law) was increasingly difficult and so churches offered to provide safe haven for refugees until they could receive legal status and safety.
This sort of sanctuary is an act of civil disobedience, a choice someone or a group make because of their deeply held religious belief and because they believe that handing refugees over to immigration officials would violate their duty as Christians to care for the least of these. It was this same form of civil disobedience that inspired Christians who worked on the Underground Railroad, breaking the laws of cities, states, and even our own country to protect slaves seeking freedom.
Now, what the HRC was asked to consider was something different than that. It was whether Grand Haven should be a sanctuary city. The practicality of that decision would simply be that our police and civil servants would not work with immigration officials in enforcing immigration law. It would also require that we don’t inquire into or take action based on someone’s immigration status. Basically, it leaves immigration enforcement to ICE and says that, as a municipality, we will not involve ourselves in this question.
That’s actually the way our law works. There is nothing in the United States law that requires local government to cooperate with immigration enforcement and that point has been upheld by the Supreme Court. Many have found that it’s essential for local authorities not to be involved, that way immigrants feel safe contacting police when they are the victims of violent crime or going to the hospital when they are in need of care.
Even though the immediate warning people throw out there at this idea is that it would lead to a rise in crime, studies show that’s not the case. In fact, a 2017 study published in the Journal of Urban Economics found that sanctuary policies had no statistically significant impact on crime rates. In the same year, a report by the Center for American Progress indicated that “Statistical analysis illustrates that across a range of social and economic indicators, sanctuary counties perform better than comparable non-sanctuary counties.”
In fact, the only study that has found a correlation between sanctuary study and a rise in crime is one done by the right-leaning “Heritage Foundation” – and that study has been criticized for its faulty methodology.
And I will say that, as a Christian, I support the sanctuary movement. Our current immigration laws and system are broken and based upon the history of racism in our country. And I do believe that we need both civil disobedience on the part of Christians alongside of the refusal of municipalities to cooperate with this unjust system.
Did you know that the idea that crossing a national border without authorization is a criminal offense is actually a rather new idea. It wasn’t until 1929 that our own country passed a law criminalizing undocumented immigration. That law was part of efforts by nativist politicians and white supremacists who believed that the United States should be a nation of white Anglo-Saxon protestants. And so they created race-based quotas that gave preference to people from northern and western Europe while banning almost all immigration from Asia, for instance. And the current system continues to give preference to some countries (like the UK) while also creating backlogs so that it takes twenty-two years to wait in line and immigrate legally from Mexico.
I think it’s unlikely Grand Haven will become a sanctuary city, largely because there is more violent emotion around the phrase than thoughtful concern for the plight of the undocumented person who is fleeing violence and poverty. But I do hope we can have that conversation and, no matter what, come away better informed about what our actual laws entail even as Christians ask what we, as people of faith, believe Jesus would have us to do when it comes to our immigrant neighbor.
The Rev. Dr. Jared C. Cramer serves as rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven. Information about his parish can be found at www.sjegh.com. Information on his own parish’s Sanctuary Statement is online at https://www.sjegh.com/immigration-justice
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