Summer 2017 – The Sanctuary Issue
Summer 2017

Table of Contents

The Sanctuary Issue

From the Editors

Compassionate Defiance

In the 1930s, a million Mexican people were forced out of the United States across the border into Mexico. It wasn’t called deportation then—euphemistically it was referred to as repatriation. About 60 percent of those people were actually U.S. citizens. In 1942, the government incarcerated all Japanese people on the West Coast. Two-thirds were U.S. citizens. The previous century gave us the Know Nothing Party wanting to ban Catholic immigrants. Missouri’s Extermination Order of 1838 made Mormons enemies of the state. It was legal to kill them.

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When Hospitality Was the Norm and Multiculturalism Was a Good Thing

Despite border walls and travel bans, the Middle East is still a region where the weary traveler is welcomed and embraced.
Ariel Sophia Bardi
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This Is Our Best Defense Against Trump’s Immigration Policies

Even with limited control over ICE agents, sanctuary is a public statement with a powerful political impact.
Mary Turck
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In One of the Nation’s Most Conservative Places, A Sanctuary City

Advocates in Santa Ana mobilize to educate, assist, protect, and inspire undocumented residents.
Josué Rivas
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Can Portland Build a System Like the Underground Railroad for Immigrants?

As ICE increases its arrests, 30 Portland-area churches have pledged to offer sanctuary to undocumented immigrants. Anyone thinking of joining them must be ready to answer these hard questions.
Corey Pein
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You Don’t Need a Sanctuary City to Help Your Immigrant Neighbors

In Greensboro, North Carolina, sanctuary policies are banned. But that hasn’t stopped residents and local police from supporting immigrants in their community.
Yessenia Funes
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Undocumented and Transgender

A creative support system—including housing, legal aid, and training for detention centers—emerges to address the unique challenges of LGBTQ immigrants.
Norman Allen
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Reality Check: More Police Officers Don’t Equal Safer Neighborhoods

Earlier this year, activists launched a campaign called Freedom Cities to protect and uplift all people of color. (And, no, it doesn't include more police.)
Zenobia Jeffries Warfield
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The Defiant, Refugee-Loving History of New Mexico

How the state’s unique and open relationship with Mexico is overshadowing Trump’s immigration policies.
Michael J. Dax
Anti-Islamophobia canvassers from Jewish Voice for Peace work their way through Oakland

6 Places Resisting Fear With Compassionate Defiance

Sanctuary city policies can only go so far. The real job of creating welcome and safety falls to ordinary people.
Lornet Turnbull
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What Japanese Internment Taught Us About Standing Up for Our Neighbors

First, we must demand justice for ourselves. Second, those who have privilege and power must intervene for those without.
Tracy Matsue Loeffelholz

Solutions We Love

Explore Section
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5 Ways to Take Your Love of the Outdoors to the Next Level

Get outside, roll up your sleeves, and take a stand for public lands.
Melissa Hellmann
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Electric Trains Everywhere: A Solution to Crumbling Roads and Climate Crisis

Transportation accounts for nearly a third of the country’s carbon emissions.
Stephen Miller
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Meet the People Whose Job Is Checking Facts

We’ve got enough political commentators. We need more fact checkers.
J. Gabriel Ware
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Why We Are Driven to Search for the Truth

It’s something we struggle to see more clearly, to realize day to day, to make more real in our lives. And that’s always messy business.
Robert Jensen

Culture Shift

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How Photography Shapes Our View of Native Americans

Using an early photographic process, one photographer hopes to draw a line connecting what happened to the Dakota people in Mankato, Minnesota, 155 years ago and what is happening today to the Dakota/Lakota standing up to a $3.7 billion crude oil pipeline.
Jacqueline Keeler
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How We Can Transition to a “Bottom Up” Economy

Three ways to rewire the economy for equality and ecological sustainability.
Chuck Collins
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What the Insanity of Mass Incarceration Has Done To Us

We have lived with mass incarceration for so long that we do not see that it’s making even those who are supposed to be free less human—and less humane.
Patrice Gaines
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Wild Bees Can Help Honey Bees—How Your Yard Can Support Them

Although farmers have come to rely on imported honey bees, wild pollinators are hardier.
Lori Panico
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Who Has the Skills to Build Community? We All Do

An online platform might be just the thing to spread around our grassroots genius.
Sarah van Gelder