City, Sanctuary: Novel Paradigms of Faith, Will, and Collective Action

This reporting project weaves together three years of sanctuary city work in New York City and Chicago, with a recent reporting trip to the first sanctuary city in the U.K., Sheffield.

It explores how Sheffield's sanctuary model—prioritizing grassroots organizing and community care over systemic political advocacy—offers a new lens through which to consider the American sanctuary city movement. This series draws on interviews with organizers, asylum seekers, volunteers, and experts, including historians, urban theorists, and policy analysts.

The stories are intimate and visual, centering on those living and working in these neighborhoods to show both the present meaning and future promise of a “city of sanctuary.” Set in Sheffield, Chicago, London, and New York—cities that have become hubs for newly arrived asylum-seeking families—this series explores what sanctuary looks like and what it asks of neighbors, community institutions, and politicians. 

While Sheffield’s model may not be directly transportable to the U.S., it offers valuable insight into how cities can build sanctuary through collective civic will, rather than fluctuating political mandates. This project takes up questions about what sanctuary has meant, means, and can mean, and queries the obligations and connections shared by neighbors. It traces the history of the City of Sanctuary movement, illuminating the many pathways parallel ideologies can follow, and the intangible import of and respect due to a culture of place.

What emerged from this investigation was not a set of solutions, but a renewed understanding of the power of local networks to instigate meaningful change, and a re-orientation of sanctuary as not a status, but a continuous, community-led project, driven by faith.