State borders are often viewed as something faraway that demarcate a country’s frontier; however, whenever a teacher, nurse, social worker, or frontline city worker requires proof of citizenship to access services, they undertake the work of border guards. In Canada and abroad, Sanctuary City policies range from local governments issuing ID cards, schools clandestinely enrolling undocumented students, and domestic abuse shelters refusing entry to the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) conducting raids on their property. This activism and policymaking exemplify a case where municipal policy propels social change and analysis of how urban spatial politics interact with state borders that impede migrants’ access to outreach services. I apply an International Political Sociological (IPS) methodological framework to critically deconstruct academic and public narratives that emphasize the urban and religious character of Sanctuary Cities. Using IPS, I combine political theory that calls for abolishing state borders, critical cartography, and a political theology to deconstruct the foundational texts and mapping methods of critical -border, -citizenship, and -migration studies that research Sanctuary Cities. I argue that these subfields reproduce a narrative that cities, economic globalization, and religious movements are in-of-themselves antithetical to state borders. I challenge this narrative by conceptualizing a seeing like a zone approach to visualize the border in terms of deportation routes, inter-police networks, and how the Immigration Refugee Board (IRB) enacts self-deportations. Using Geographic Information System (GIS), I create six maps depicting CBSA, IRB, and local policing immigration infrastructure used in Ontario for the deportation, imprisonment, trials, and investigation of migrants. These maps and my seeing like a zone approach demonstrate that current Social Scientific literature overlook how Sanctuary Cities are ultimately compatible with state borders. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Sanctuary City movements involve community activists and stakeholders lobbying municipalities to deliver city services like schooling, local health clinics, or domestic abuse shelters, regardless of a person’s immigration status. Sanctuary helps people evade deportation in their everyday lives. To what extent do Sanctuary Cities challenge state borders? I challenge the conventional way that social scientists look at Sanctuary Cities. First, despite the religious moniker, Sanctuary Cities are a form of human rights activism which relies on state governments to provide migrants rights. Second, scholars assume Sanctuary Cities challenge borders, however, existing mapping methods do not exist to corroborate such claims. I use mapping software to show the different types of state borders that are enforced in Ontario, the home of Toronto’s Sanctuary City. Finally, I argue that Sanctuary and national borders only exist in specific zones (like in schools, clinics, or public transit) as opposed to entire cities or regions.

This research observes how discourses of belonging and citizenship manifest in media coverage. I combine both the theoretical framework of postcolonial and coloniality, and a close critical discourse analysis of various media coverage about sanctuary. I observe how nonprofits who work with the immigrant community, municipal government media, and local and national mainstream news media in Philadelphia, Minneapolis, and San Francisco cover the concept of sanctuary. The inauguration of President Donald Trump in 2017 marked a new iteration of executive orders, that barred much of the immigration population that sanctuary policies are attempting to keep safe. Therefore, observing the sanctuary during the Trump administration generates new data to analyze. Through a critical discourse analysis of media in Philadelphia, Minneapolis, and San Francisco, I found that the conceptualization of sanctuary is convoluted. I argue that without a precise definition, it offers the Trump administration space to deem the practice of sanctuary as dangerous. The mainstream news media relies heavily on placing immigrant groups in deservingness frames, translating that some immigrants belong while others do not. In my analysis, I also found that nonprofits and municipal media use media to create welcoming atmospheres through multiculturalism, assimilation, and religious rhetoric, so the immigrant population feels like they belong. While these welcoming practices are helpful to building an immigrant community, these practices were reliant on these strategies, which I argue could overshadow the complex relationship between those supporting the immigrant and the immigrant. / Media & Communication

This thesis explores the increasingly relevant sanctuary phenomenon in the Canadian context by studying church-based sanctuary and Sanctuary City. These two main applications of Canadian political sanctuary experience differing successes and contrasting relationships with the state. The question underpinning this thesis is what characteristics explain why some sanctuaries are successful and what helps to explain the Canadian state’s respective response to these two sanctuaries. I argue that part of the answer lies in how sanctuary-providers configure four characteristics that are common to all applications of sanctuary. These four – intervention, space, the precarious subject of sanctuary, and transparency – highlight the aims and purposes of any given sanctuary as well as the relationship that sanctuary has with the state. Overall, I argue that Canadian church-based sanctuary has been a successful political sanctuary while Canadian Sanctuary City has not been successful. / Graduate

This paper seeks to understand policy in the City of New York which limits cooperation with federal authorities for purposes of immigration control. It does so by qualitatively analyzing a set of legal-administrative documents. The key, policy features are identified along with the interests and forces which shaped those features over time. An arsenal of supplemental, legal material as well as the findings of legal scholars are consulted for interpretation in hermeneutic fashion. Using a theoretical framework consisting of the structure of the legal system of the United States and it norms, plus certain immigration-related, national trends, this research concludes this policy is the legacy of an unbroken, bi-partisan lineage of administrations dating back to the 1980s – an evolving product of the tensions between the legal norms and the national trends. The policy reinforces sovereignty from the federal government, and it does so largely for purposes of constitutionality, administrative functionality and civil rights.

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