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61 S.M.U. L. Rev. 133 (2008)
What is a Sanctuary

handle is hein.journals/smulr61 and id is 141 raw text is: WHAT Is A SANCTUARY? Rose Cuison Villazor * The word sanctuary has recently received significant attention in the political arena and is likely to receive further examination as calls for stricter enforcement of immigration law continue. But what precisely is a sanctuary, particularly in the context of today's immigration issues? In this Article, I initiate possible approaches to developing an answer. First, I argue that a starting point for defining the contemporary meaning of sanctuary is an examination of its public and private dimensions. Laws, resolutions, and policies that have created what I refer to here as public sanctuaries must be differentiated from programs and services that are provided within private sanctuaries. Both types of sanctuaries have dif- ferent goals and, importantly, they implicate distinct legal issues. Second, determining what constitutes a sanctuary requires an analysis of its discur- sive deployment, particularly the shift in its utilization from a primarily morally-based posturing in the 1980s to its more critical characterization today. Closer analysis of the defensive discourse of the word sanctuary would not only lead to a more robust understanding of sanctuary's mean- ing today, but would also raise normative legal and policy questions that attend to immigrants' rights. Specifically, given the social and political costs associated with the term sanctuary, it may well be time to reconsider its rhetorical utility in creating safe havens for immigrants. INTRODUCTION A we get closer to the 2008 presidential election, immigration- particularly issues concerning the rights and privileges of un- documented immigrants-remains an important issue among voters and political leaders alike.1 For months during the campaign pro- * Assistant Professor of Law, SMU Dedman School of Law. This Article expands on legal and public policy issues discussed during my presentation entitled Providing Sanctuary to Immigrant Families at the SMU Law Symposium Immigrants and Immigra- tion Reform: Civil Rights in the 21st Century, Oct. 19, 2007 and at the AALS Annual Meeting, Section on Women in Legal Education, Program on Gender and Class: Voices from the Collective, Jan. 3, 2008. I benefited from comments I received from participants of both conferences. For their insightful suggestions on earlier drafts of this Article, I am grateful to Laura Appleman, Kevin Johnson, Michael A. Olivas, Huyen Pham, and Rod- ney Villazor. Special thanks to Bill Bridge and Anthony Colangelo for helpful conversa- tions about the arguments pursued in this Article. Finally, I thank Amy Banks, Ayse Guner, and Michelle Vincent Parker for their excellent research assistance and the editors of the SMU Law Review for their editorial assistance. 1. See Adam Nagourney, Polls Find Voters Weighing Issues vs. Electability, N.Y. IMES, Nov. 14, 2007, at Al (reporting that a poll conducted in Iowa shows that 86% of

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