WUWM is taking a step back to explore Milwaukee and Wisconsin’s immigration history through our series, Making Wisconsin: Our Immigration History, which helps us understand who our neighbors are and how immigration has shaped the city, state and country.
Today we are exploring the concept of sanctuary, which has a few definitions. It is a physical space within a house of worship, but it’s also been thought of as a safe harbor where immigrants and refugees can seek respite. Throughout our local and national history there have been waves of sanctuary movements stemming from religious organizations, activists, and legislation. Sergio González, Marquette University assistant professor of history and author, helps us take a look at sanctuary, how it's uniquely remember in relation to American history, and how it shaped our history and politics today.
"In U.S. immigration history people have often defined the United States as a place of sanctuary for people all across the world: refugees, asylum seekers, economic migrants, people who are looking for a new opportunity or a sense of safety here in this country," he notes. "When we think even more specifically, and I think if we think the 21st Century and 2025, sanctuary now has a very specific political connotation, and of course that's very much connected to the question of immigration and the way in which immigration activists have taken up that term, especially since the 1980s as a rallying cry to really create these spaces of safety for undocumented immigrants and and refugees in this country."
The Underground Railroad in Wisconsin
Gonzalez says that Wisconsin's activity in the Underground Railroad, including the Milton House — a certified stop, are some of the earliest examples of sanctuary in action. "If we think about sanctuary as this kind of founding mythology of the United States ... different groups throughout American history have appropriated that language to their own ends, and I think one of the most dramatic examples is in the 19th Century abolitionists who strongly objected to the institution of slavery," explains González. "But [they] didn't just object to it in their language and their ideas, or even in what they wrote, but they actually enacted it through the material work that they did."
One of the most dramatic stories of sanctuary in Wisconsin during this time period is the rescue of Joshua Glover, a man who was fleeing enslavement. Glover was captured and held in the Milwaukee County Courthouse, which is now in the Cathedral Square area that we know today.
"He was being held in captivity there, basically waiting to be taken back to his enslaver and the robust abolitionist community here in the city, in southeastern Wisconsin, heard about the situation of Joshua Glover, and they quickly went to the Milwaukee County Courthouse," González explains. "They began by petitioning the local government and the state government to release him, saying that the state of Wisconsin didn't have the institution of slavery on the books, and so this is not something that the the state should be abiding by. But of course, the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act mandated that the state of Wisconsin hold Joshua Glover to be taken back to his enslaver. And so this local community of abolitionists decided to take matters into their own hands."
At the time St. John's Cathedral was in the process of being built, "So these abolitionists actually grabbed the timbers that were being used to build this church to ram down the doors of the courthouse. They grabbed Joshua Glover and they speed him off in the dark of the night, basically move him from safe house to safe house, from Waukesha back to Milwaukee, down to southeastern Wisconsin before they eventually were able to get him out to Canada, where he could be safe."
This dynamic of the tension between federal and local laws is central to sanctuary in our history according to González.
The question of sanctuary at its heart has always been this challenge to a form of state power, and what the state is of course changes in those conversations.Sergio González
"The question of sanctuary at its heart has always been this challenge to a form of state power, and what the state is of course changes in those conversations ... In this country we have this rich and robust history of federalism ... and Americans have understood their ability to protest federal law in a lot of different ways... and as we know, it continues to play out today. The way in which governors and local elected officials are are challenging federal laws that they don't agree with, that they're their representatives and and their constituents don't agree with."
The Great Migration & World War II
Gonzalez notes this period is one of "real and failed sanctuary." Wisconsin had a late Great Migration that didn't see its Black communities grow until the 1940s and 1950s as Black Americans traveled northward, leaving the South due to the Jim Crow South system that forced them to live in second class citizenship and economic deprivation. Most settle in Chicago, and when Milwaukee's Black community settled in the area they were looking for the exact same things European immigrants came to the U.S. looking for in the 1850s — a new start, safety, economic opportunity extrajudicial violence or violence by the state.
"They certainly do find better economic opportunities here in Milwaukee than they would have found in places like Alabama or Mississippi, but they also find a new system of second class citizenship," Gonzalez notes. "It's not as severe as the Jim Crow South, it's certainly not enacted with the form of violence that lives in places like Alabama or Mississippi, but they know they're made to feel like they don't belong and that happens in a lot of different ways. Whether it's at the work site, whether that's where they're allowed to live ... Black Americans who arrived here in Milwaukee who become Black Milwaukeeans and Black Wisconsinites, they have to navigate all of these different factors."
Post-World War II, Americans realize they also failed to give European immigrants a place of sanctuary in a time of war. "The world turned a blind eye to what was happening in Europe, especially Western Europe and in parts of Germany and Austria and Poland throughout the 1930s," González says. This became clear after American soldiers traveled through Western Europe seeing and documenting the conditions of concentration camps.
"Eventually as these images make their way across the world, [people realize] that the country had failed to offer sanctuary to not only European Jews, but a wide assortment of people who had been victimized by the Nazi regime, and so there's an acknowledgment after 1945 that the world needs to do better," González explains. He notes that when the United Nations formed after WWII, one of the most important things they do is set standards for how the world is responsible to deal with refugees and the obligations or responsibilities of nation states to offer these people a sense of sanctuary.
However, even after the entire concept of the refugee is developed as a legal category after 1945, the U.S. does not sign on to the United Nation standard of what a refugee is in 1947. "In fact, they don't adopt that fully until 1980, and one of the big reasons for that is the United States wants to be able to do their own deciding on what a refugee is and who they're going to bring into the nation," González explains. "And so after 1945, the Cold War Era, the United States continues to kind of work through who is going to be allowed into this country under this idea of refugee."
Sanctuary Movement of the 1980s
According to Gonzalez, the 1980s is when sanctuary becomes a widespread rallying cry for a growing movement of religiously motivated people working out of houses of worship. During this time a growing number of people arrived from Central America to the U.S. Mexico border, many from El Salvador and Guatemala "bearing very clear marks of the revolutions and the civil wars that they are fleeing."
These refugees try to avail themselves to the newly-passed 1980 Refugee Act, which González says stipulates that if a person can demonstrate a well founded fear of persecution in their home country, they should be allowed to stay in the United States.
Although this act finally brought the U.S. into line with international human rights law, "The problem is Salvadorans and Guatemalans witnessed a 97-98% rejection rate of their asylum applications. And so you have churches and synagogues in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, they see this happening, they're asking why is this going on? And they quickly realize that this is all politically motivated. The Reagan administration is refusing to acknowledge these people as refugees because they would then have to acknowledge the United States' role in destabilizing those countries in the first place."
Gonzalez notes that the first churches to declare themselves places of sanctuary for Central American asylum seekers are in Arizona and California in 1982. "They do so knowing that they might be seen as breaking the law by the federal government... Pretty soon that movement spreads all across the country, including here in Milwaukee," he adds. "Milwaukee becomes the host to the first Latino, the first Black and the first Jewish houses of worship to become sanctuaries for Salvadorans and Guatemalans during this time."
Sister Darlene Nicgorski
"Milwaukee was such an important part of the sanctuary movement in the 1980s, both because of the houses of worship here, but also the people that were engaged in the movement," González says. One of those people was Sister Darlene Nicgorski, a Milwaukee native and member of the School Sisters of Saint Francis who was sent to Guatemala on a mission trip in the late 70s and early 80s. She witnessed first-hand some of the destruction that was happening, including a parish priest she was working with get killed by a death squad.
"[Nicgorski] comes back to the United States very much radicalized by what she's seen and very troubled by understanding that her country is responsible for a lot of what's happening in this country, and so she joins the sanctuary movement," González says. "She becomes really one of the most important figures in helping people move from the U.S. Mexico borderlands all across the country."
In 1985 the federal government brings smuggling charges against some of the leaders of the sanctuary movement after a multi-year campaign of spying on churches, including Sister Nicgorski, who was actually called the "conductor of the Underground Railroad of the 1980s" by the Justice Department.
"She wears this with a certain badge of pride," González says. "And in fact, she says when she's interviewed that she is guilty, she's guilty of a conspiracy of love ... which is to say that her faith as a Catholic nun, her status as an American has forced her to do this work."
Ultimately Sister Nicgorski and the others charged were found guilty in federal court, but there were vindicated in the public eye according to González.
"The sanctuary movement is ultimately one of the most successful social moments in the history of the United States. By the end of the 1980s, they successfully sued the federal government to readjudicate hundreds of thousands of these asylum applications and they introduce an entirely new immigration status into American law through the 1990 Immigration Act, which is temporary protected status," he says.
Wisconsin declared a sanctuary state
In 1986 Wisconsin Gov. Tony Earl declared Wisconsin as a sanctuary state in the middle of a reelection campaign. "All Americans see what's happening here, especially when these federal charges are brought against these sanctuary workers, it becomes national news. And Gov. Earl feels an obligation as an elected official here in the state to recommend that Wisconsin is get involved in this work," González explains.
"On paper it's mostly a statement of support for the movement and in fact he invites Wisconsinites to join this work as well. He doesn't have the clear statements there — what it actually means for state employees or if there's going to be financial contributions to this effort, which that never actually materialize. But it sends a clear statement on where he believes the state of Wisconsin should be, and where Wisconsin should stand on the question of sanctuary," González explains.
New Sanctuary Movement
The sanctuary movement went dormant after the early 1990s as revolutions in Central America settled and the United States begins to live up to its obligations of the Refugee Act, according to González. After September 11, 2001 the U.S. began to increase its surveillance of undocumented communities.
"There are growing calls to really connect questions of national security and national defense with immigration, which leads to militarization of the border, the creation of organizations like Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) and so there are more and more undocumented people in this country who feel unsafe. They feel like they can't come out of the shadows, as is often referred to. They feel like they can't live their lives in this country," González explains.
The number of deportations increased under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, which led houses of worship to again revive sanctuary work starting around 2011.
"You start to see these really large growing numbers of of churches and synagogues get involved, they call themselves the new sanctuary movement, and now they're offering safe harbor not just to asylum seekers, but also to people who have lived in this country for 20 years," González notes.
"People... from all parts of the world, in fact, who perhaps see themselves as Americans in all ways except for their legal documentation. They've established roots here, they have jobs here, they've had children here and now they're feeling they're going to be torn away from the very social fabric that makes them feel at home in this country," González explains. "So the new sanctuary movement kind of takes up that 150 year plus history of sanctuary in this country, repackages it and becomes another vibrant movement."
The Anti-sanctuary Movement
"I always say that to talk about immigration politics in 2025 is to talk about anti-sanctuary politics," González notes. "And the reason that is is because sanctuary has served as such a robust form of rebuke to the federal government. Whether it's in the 1980s, whether it's in that initiation of the new sanctuary moment or specifically in the first election of Donald Trump in 2016. In 2017, we saw this kind of prairie fire spreading across the country. It was the sanctuary kind of growing, not just in religious spaces, but also in secular spaces."
Much of the sanctuary movement spreading across the country from cities to schools to restaurants was often a form of messaging to make clear that all immigrants are welcome regardless of status. However, sometimes actions served as an actual barrier for the federal government to enact punitive forms of immigration enforcement and anti-sanctuary politics in the last decade according to González.
"It is kind of the history of social movements in this country, which is to say that if there is an effective social movement, there is going to be an effective counter movement towards it as well. We are right now kind of living through the consequences of that," he says. "It is much too soon to tell what will be the outcome of this. We do know that across the federal government, whether it's at the executive branch or the legislative branch, anti-sanctuary politics are gaining quite purchase right now."
"The fact that we see such a varied response to the question of sanctuary across the United States, I think speaks to its power," González adds.
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