PhD candidate sasha skaidra publishes in Environment and Planning C.

sasha skaidra asks in her article, how should we understand Sanctuary Cities? To what extent do Sanctuary Cities challenge borders or simply draw new ones? Scholarship is split between seeing the Sanctuary City movement in a progressivist light of anti-border civil society movements, or, viewed as another iteration of citizenship controls. Critics point out how Sanctuary Cities, wherein municipalities provide services regardless of immigration status, do little to guarantee security for undocumented peoples who are at constant risk of deportation. Those who are optimistic about the movement’s emancipatory potential celebrate Sanctuary Cities’ ability to challenge the policing of migration. Why are the interpretations of Sanctuary City policies so polarized? sasha's paper develops the metric of ‘private deputized sovereignty’ to trace how local policy discretion can implement or contest control over citizenship enforcement powers. She investigates how ‘private deputized sovereignty’ emerges from zoning technology inherent to urban spatial production. Her paper examines the case of Toronto Sanctuary City policies where economic and sanctuary zones empower local authorities, civil society, and/or private actors to either grant amnesty or exile migrants.

Read the paper in full.