Cities of Refuge: Citizenship, Legality and Exception in U.S. Sanctuary Cities by Jennifer Suzanne Ridgley A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Geography University of Toronto © Copyright by Jennifer Suzanne Ridgley 2010 Cities of Refuge: Citizenship, Legality and Exception in U.S. Sanctuary Cities Jennifer Suzanne Ridgley Doctor of Philosophy Department of Geography University of Toronto 2010 Abstract In the 1980s, in support of the Sanctuary Movement for Central American refugees, cities across the United States began to withdraw information and resources from the boundary making processes of the federal state. Inspired in part by a 1971 initiative in Berkeley, California to provide sanctuary to soldiers refusing to fight in Vietnam, “Cities of Refuge” issued statements of non-cooperation with the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). They passed policies that prevented police and service providers from asking the immigration status of the people they came into contact with in the course of their daily duties, and limited information sharing with the federal authorities. Drawing on archival research and interviews, this dissertation maps the shifting meaning of Sanctuary as a constellation of practices and logics which has troubled the boundaries of national citizenship. Struggles to establish Cities of Refuge reveal the complex interplay between two different political trajectories in the United States: one deeply implicated with the state’s authority over migration controls and what Agamben has understood as the sovereign exception, and the other with city sanctuary, as a form of urban citizenship. The genealogy of city sanctuary ii reveals the multiple and sometimes contradictory threads or genealogies that have been woven into American citizenship over time, raising questions about the ostensibly hardened relationship between sovereignty, membership, and the nation state. Exploring the interactions between the daily practices of state institutions and Sanctuary reveals the performative aspects of exception: it is produced and maintained only through the constant repetition of discourses and practices that maintain the boundaries of citizenship and reproduce the state’s authority to control the movement of people across its border. Bringing the study of sovereignty into the city, and exploring alternative assertions of sovereignty reveals the exception not as an underlying logic, but a geographically specific, ongoing struggle. iii Acknowledgments I am deeply grateful to the many people who have provided support and encouragement during the course of this research, and my time as a graduate student. This research would not have been possible without the contributions of the many archivists, municipal staff, activists and advocates who assisted with, and participated in, this project. I have been consistently inspired by the dedication and analysis of activists in the United States and Canada who continue to organize for the rights of migrants, particularly those with the courage to push the boundaries and open up space for a more robust challenge to the global system of migration controls. I am profoundly grateful for their continued engagement with these issues. My supervisors, Sue Ruddick and Amrita Daniere provided me with an incredible amount of support over the years. I am grateful to Sue for the many hours of conversation and tough questions which helped shape this project, and my own intellectual growth. Amrita and Sue provided a great deal of encouragement over the course of my graduate studies, and, together with my other committee members, Kanishka Goonewardena and Jason Hackworth, created a home for me in the university. I thank Derek Gregory and Rachel Silvey, my external reviewers, for their thoughtful engagement with my work during the final stages of this process. I am also deeply indebted to several “unofficial” committee members and friends, including Deb Cowen, Emily Gilbert and Neil Smith, who have engaged with my work, and together with Scott Prudham, helped keep me focused on the politics of what I was doing. Neil Smith generously hosted me for a year at the Center for Place, Culture and Politics at CUNY in New York City, providing me with a wonderful space and community in which to conduct my research there. I am grateful to everyone at the Center who made it such a rich experience. My dear friend and sometimes co-author, Justin Steil, was a fantastic research partner and travel companion during this time. The research we did together in Pennsylvania, although not directly written up in this dissertation, has shaped my understanding of immigration law and politics in significant ways. In California, I acknowledge the love and support of the folks from Wnaff Wac, who opened up Berkeley to me, and provided me with a home during several research trips to the Bay Area. iv This research was carried out with financial support from the Canada-U.S. Fulbright Program, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), the Department of Geography and School of Graduate Studies at the University of Toronto, and the Ontario Graduate Scholarship Program. At the University of Toronto, the wonderful staff in the Department of Geography provided critical administrative support throughout my PhD, and I am grateful for their patience and good humour. Likewise, I acknowledge the support and dedication of the folks who have been involved with CUPE Local 3902 and the Graduate Geography and Planning Student Society (GGAPSS). My experiences in graduate school have been shaped by the energy they have put into improving the learning and working conditions at the University of Toronto, and I am thankful for their efforts. My family has given me much love and encouragement over the years, and I am extremely grateful to them for their continued support. I was lucky to travel through the PhD process with some wonderful co-conspirators, including Amy Siciliano, Vanessa Mathews, Patrick Vitale, Emily Eaton, Roger Picton, Lisa Freeman, Lindsay Stephens, Tom Young, and Derek McKee. Their brilliance, friendship, good humour, and engagement with their research has had a significant impact on my understanding of the world. Likewise, I am grateful to the continued love and support from Paul Jackson, Deb Mandell, Maggie Hutcheson, Ed Crummey, Danielle Layman-Pleet, Jessie Perlitz, Elinor Whidden (the Archduke), Jill Rogin, and Kurt Kerschl. They have filled my life with art and critical politics and love and good food, and words cannot express how thankful I am to have such amazing people with me on this journey. v Table of Contents Cities of Refuge: Citizenship, Legality and Exception in U.S. Sanctuary Cities ................................ i Acknowledgments ........................................................................................................................... iv Table of Contents ............................................................................................................................ vi INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER 1: Problematic ................................................................................................................ 6 Reading Agamben in the City of Refuge ......................................................................................... 7 The City as a Space of Citizenship ................................................................................................. 12 Research Sites and Subjects .......................................................................................................... 14 Doing Genealogy ........................................................................................................................... 16 Chapter Outline ............................................................................................................................. 20 CHAPTER 2: Intercession and Territoriality: The Logics of Sanctuary .......................................... 23 Introduction .................................................................................................................................. 23 The Narrative of Religious Sanctuary ............................................................................................ 27 The Biblical Cities of Refuge ..................................................................................................... 27 Ancient Sanctuary: Intercession and Territoriality .................................................................. 30 Contemporary Religious Sanctuary in the United States: Three Waves ..................................... 35 First Wave: Sanctuary and the Vietnam War .......................................................................... 35 Second Wave: Sanctuary for Central American Refugees ...................................................... 41 Civil Initiative and Civil Disobedience ............................................................................... 44 The Third Wave: The New Sanctuary Movement ................................................................... 49 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................... 53 CHAPTER 3: Refuge, Refusal and Contagion: The City as Sanctuary for Soldiers Resisting the Vietnam War ...........................................................................................................................