From Strangers to Neighbors: Toward an Ethics of Sanctuary Cities

Abstract

The thesis offered in this essay is developed across two parts. The first part is descriptive, showing how and in what ways sanctuary cities are to be understood as ethical. This task also involves examining the arguments by which sanctuary cities can be defended. The second part is prescriptive, prescribing the actions that one should take within a sanctuary city, considering the ends that motivate these actions, and speculating as to the consequences that might result from their enactment. Put otherwise, the first section is about showing how sanctuary cities offer a kind of possibility, and the second is to show how we might fulfill that possibility. My key claims can be summed up as follows. On the descriptive side, sanctuary cities are to be understood as ethical because the retreat of the state they represent creates a negative space that can be filled by ethical action. On the prescriptive side, individuals can seek to engage with individuals different than themselves and invest public spaces with meaning. The result is the turning of strangers into neighbors.