Sanctuary Politics Isn't Compassion — It's Open Defiance of Federal Law

For decades, Americans have been told that "sanctuary" is a moral stance. It isn't. It's not compassion, and it's not "community values." It is open defiance of federal law, wrapped in feel-good language so local governments, NGOs, and religious institutions can claim moral superiority while carving out their own legal fiefdoms.

The Origins: A Direct Challenge to Federal Authority

The original Sanctuary Movement of the 1980s was not a charity mission. It was a direct challenge to federal authority. Religious leaders like John Fife , assisted by James Corbett in 1980, started the movement with more than 500 churches helping to assist people fleeing El Salvador and Guatemala from death squads. These leaders openly declared that their moral judgment outranked Congress, the courts, and the Constitution. When the government prosecuted them in 1986, it wasn't because Washington lacked empathy. It was because these activists were constructing a parallel legal system and daring the federal government to stop them.

It is probably fair to say that those Presbyterians who immigrated to the US to freely practice religion, seek better living conditions and economic opportunities, and played a key role in shaping the US, felt obligated to help. In 2004, a group of religious leaders formed a coalition called "No More Deaths" — John Fife was among those leaders.

San Francisco's 1985 "City of Refuge" ordinance took that defiance and institutionalized it. The city didn't change federal law; it simply announced it would ignore it. That symbolic gesture became the blueprint for the national patchwork we have today: states that cooperate with federal immigration agents, states that refuse, states that ban sanctuary cities, and states that declare themselves sanctuary territory.

This isn't federalism. This is legal balkanization.

Who Benefits?

And the beneficiaries know exactly what they're doing. Employers get cheap labor. Cities get inflated population numbers. States get federal dollars tied to those numbers. NGOs get endless fundraising. Politicians get a permanent outrage machine. Groups like Indivisible and activists like Jodie Evans of Code Pink continue organizing beyond major protest days, including nationwide training sessions aimed at monitoring immigration enforcement activity.

Everyone wins — except the public, who gets a legal system where enforcement depends on geography, not law.

And here's the part the political class hopes you never notice: if voter ID polls at roughly 95% among Republicans and about 71% among Democrats, sanctuary policy would likely show the same kind of partisan divide — but the public never gets to vote on it.

Why? Because the United States has no mechanism for national referendums. The people don't decide. Judges do. That's why sanctuary policy survives every administration. Not because it's popular, but because it's insulated from democratic accountability.

We've Seen This Before — And It Never Ends Well

American history is full of moments when jurisdictions decided federal law was optional. None produced stability.

The Nullification Crisis (1832–33) — South Carolina attempted to nullify federal tariffs. The result was a constitutional showdown that nearly fractured the Union.

Resistance to the Fugitive Slave Act (1850s) — Northern states refused to enforce federal fugitive slave laws. Morally justified, yes — but structurally identical to today's sanctuary logic: federal law became optional depending on geography.

Prohibition (1920s) — Cities and states openly ignored federal alcohol laws. Enforcement collapsed. The federal government eventually repealed the law because selective obedience made it unenforceable.

Massive Resistance (1950s–60s) — Southern states defied federal desegregation orders. The federal government had to intervene directly because the alternative was the collapse of federal authority.

The pattern is unmistakable: when jurisdictions pick and choose which federal laws to obey, the constitutional order begins to unravel. Sanctuary politics is not new. It is simply the latest chapter in America's long struggle with selective obedience — and it carries the same risks.

The Real Issue Isn't Compassion. It's Legitimacy.

Here is the truth the political class refuses to confront: sanctuary politics is not a humanitarian project. It is a political architecture built on selective enforcement, legal ambiguity, and jurisdictional defiance.

A constitutional system cannot survive if its laws are optional. A federal republic cannot function if states and cities treat federal authority like a buffet. A nation cannot maintain legitimacy when enforcement depends on ZIP code.

And if anyone believes the solution is to erase the entire legal framework and start assigning people the citizenship of whatever jurisdiction existed before — Mexico, the sovereign Native nations, or any earlier human communities that lived on the land — then they should say it plainly. Because that fantasy exposes the absurdity of the current debate: you cannot fix a modern federal system by pretending the present can be replaced with the past.

The United States has one Constitution. One federal legal system. And it either applies everywhere — or it doesn't apply at all.