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Sanctuary Resources

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Sanctuary: Keeping Families Together


What Does Sanctuary Look Like Today?

Sanctuary is a sacred tradition rooted in love, protection, and justice. Across history, sanctuary has meant:

  • Sheltering freedom seekers through the Underground Railroad
  • Supporting Central American refugees in the 1980s
  • Protecting mixed-status, undocumented, and immigrant families facing deportation today.

Today, Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity is part of the National Sanctuary Movement, which organizes Sanctuary Congregations and Sanctuary People to protect immigrant neighbors from detention, deportation, and family separation. We stand in solidarity, offering support, services, and advocacy—regardless of immigration status.

Ways to Practice Sanctuary

Sanctuary is more than a place—it’s a movement. Every congregation and individual can take action in ways that align with their skills and capacity:

💛 Deportation Defense

💛 Housing & Safe Spaces

💛 Accompaniment & Legal Support

💛 Advocacy & Public Witness

Download a printable PDF of our IM4HI Sanctuary One Pager:

Explore tools, guides, and ways to take action: 🔗 Sanctuary People Resources

Why Sanctuary Matters Now

In light of the new administration’s stance on immigration and deportation, it is more important than ever for faith leaders, activists, and communities to stand in solidarity. We condemn ICE’s heartless raids and continue to oppose policies that separate families and exclude immigrants.

Read our latest press release on the revocation of sensitive locations and our commitment to immigrant justice.


Support the Movement

Your donation is an act of solidarity, sustaining sanctuary efforts and legal support for the most vulnerable. It also honors directly impacted leaders who dedicate their time and expertise to supporting faith allies.

💛Donate today at https://bit.ly/donatetoIM4HI 


Upcoming Sanctuary Events & Actions

📢 On Wednesday February 19th, from 11am-1:30 pm PST in San Francisco, we invite you to join us for an Interfaith Sanctuary Press Conference, Procession, and Vigil.

Download a printable PDF in English and Spanish of our flyer:

🌟 Our IG Live Series is back! Join us for the launch of Reaffirming Sanctuary: Loving and Protecting Our Communities with IM4HI’s Executive Director, Rev. Deb Lee,  as we dive into the emerging new Sanctuary Movement. Tune in this Thursday, Feb 6 at 11 AM PST @im4humanintegrity on IG Live! Stay tuned for more episodes to come!

Stay Connected

Keep up with the latest updates and opportunities to get involved by following us on our platforms:

Instagram 

Facebook 

Blue Sky

Together, we can make a meaningful impact and stand in solidarity with those who need sanctuary the most. Join us in reaffirming our commitment to protection, justice, and collective care!


San Francisco Sanctuary Movement: a Short History

From Theo Rigby of iNation Media. A short documentary on the history of Sanctuary in San Francisco, made on the 30th anniversary of the Sanctuary Movement.


Feature Film: Si Pudiera Quedarme

Watch the documentary Si Pudiera Quedarme by Theo Rigby of iNation Media.


Sanctuary Movement as a Response to Recent Raids

How to support the Sanctuary Movement from Auburn Seminary.

Categories
Events Resources

Border Experience Pilgrimage

Faith leaders from Northern and Southern California visited Calexico, US and Mexicali, Mexico April 26th-27th, 2023 in a multifaith Pilgrimage to learn and bear witness to struggles immigrants are facing at the U.S. – Mexico border in California, and to call for a better future. The delegation first traveled to Mexico to visit a shelter in Mexicali where many asylum seekers have been blocked from approaching the border and seeking asylum and protection. The following day, the group conducted a prayer service in front of Imperial Regional Detention Facility in Calexico, US, to bear witness to the suffering of those who are detained inside. The Pilgrimage ended with a visit to the Holtville cemetery of unnamed immigrants who have died in the desert in the region.

The Pilgrimage aimed to shed light on the injustices of the current asylum seeking process and immigrant detention. Fairness, freedom and opportunity should be at the core of our immigration system, but our current system isn’t set up to uphold these values. Instead, the Federal Government systematically blocks and deprives people of their liberty, separates them from their loved ones, and often puts lives at risk in ICE detention. The current system of detention didn’t exist just a few decades ago, and is inhumane and unnecessary: people can navigate immigration proceedings while living with their families or in the community without the trauma of immigration detention.

Learn more about the Imperial Valley, the harms of immigrant detention including at Imperial Regional Detention Facility, and the right to seek asylum with the Border Experience Pilgrimage Resource Guide.

Categories
Events Resources

Pilgrimage to Angel Island

Pilgrimage to Angel Island 2022

On Nov 5, 2022, we led a pilgrimage to Angel Island, a multi-faith spiritual journey to remember, heal & end ICE detention, convened by Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity, Center for Empowering Refugees and Immigrants, & Asian Prisoner Support Committee.


Pilgrimage is about reconnection with each other, with our ancestors, with mystery and the depth of life. We remember in order to heal, to recover collective memory, to decolonize ourselves, to restore our deeper souls. —Dr. Joanne Doi, MM.

Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity organized pilgrimages in 2010, 2018, and 2022 to Angel Island Immigration Detention Station, a national landmark that bears witness to the experiences of immigrant detainees. The Immigration Station on Angel Island (1910-1940) served to control mostly Chinese migration into the United States through a brutal and dehumanizing process. This interfaith pilgrimage explored:

  • The institutionalized othering and incarceration of people of color both in prison and detention systems, past and present
  • Discerning the role of faith responses to the immigrant struggle
  • Honoring the resilience of immigrant communities who assert their humanity and dignity.

Pilgrimage is an ancient spiritual practice in many traditions. They have evolved into modern journeys that evoke layers of meaning, collective memory, healing, and ongoing commitment to reconciliation, justice, and compassionate service. Our Angel Island pilgrimages are part of a tradition of postcolonial pilgrimages that revisit shadowed ground, sacred traces of suffering, and hope. The postcolonial pilgrim’s journey seeks restoration towards a regained wholeness by a re-centering, re-entering and recovery of history; it is a rediscovery that we are part of a living and vital collective memory. 


Angel Island Pilgrimage – More Resources


Congregational Ministry and Advocacy: the Angel Island Immigration Station Era 1910-1940 tells the little-known stories of faith leaders and religious institutions who ministered to and provided hope and physical care to immigrants who were held in detention at Angel Island Immigration Station. Their voices sought to improve living conditions, advocated for immigrants’ release, and fought for reform of unjust policies. Reading these stories kindles our spirits to be faithful and provokes us to ask ourselves: How are we to respond today? Co-edited by Rev. Deborah Lee of Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity, and Craig Wong of Grace Urban Ministries.


Angel Island Pilgrimage: A Reflection on Roots, Migration, Detention, & Border Control – a pilgrimage guide by Kenneth Schoon, at the Graduate Theological Union’s Berkeley Art and Interreligious Pilgrimage Project


Text of our 2018 Ceremony to honor ancestors, past and present, who experienced forced migration and detention.


2018 Angel Island Pilgrimage Booklet, in English or Spanish:


2018 Angel Island Pilgrimage program booklet: