A Theology of Smuggling

A Theology of Smuggling

November 20, 2025 at 06:30PM

In the early 1980s, in Tucson, Arizona, activists and religious leaders joined forces to protect refugees from Latin America at the U.S.-Mexico border. Their collaboration galvanized the Sanctuary Movement:

Though border enforcement has become draconian in novel ways during the second term of Donald Trump, the push-and-pull of federal escalation and citizen resistance in the borderlands has a long history. To prevent people from dying, volunteers and activists in Tucson have been defying the government for over 40 years. Their work is anchored and justified by the concept of civil initiative, the conviction that the government is breaking international and federal laws when it detains and deports individuals fleeing violence in their home countries.

The robust humanitarian network that exists today, along the border and with nodes throughout the U.S., was seeded four decades ago, in the 1970s and ’80s. It’s a story of unlikely confluence. Three disparate forces—a civil rights movement, a mission church, and a cowboy-philosopher—came together with an unstoppable resolve to act.

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from Longreads https://longreads.com/2025/11/20/a-theology-of-smuggling/
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