In the wake of the San Francisco murder of Kate Steinle by serial illegal immigrant Francisco Sanchez—a story garnering national headline attention—the spotlight on immigration debate has now shifted to sanctuary policies adopted by some 275 U.S cities to protect illegal aliens from the reach of federal law enforcement.
The sanctuary movement began in the 1980s as an extension of the “underground railroad” to help illegal aliens from El Salvador and Guatemala. But it was more than that. The sanctuary movement in the U.S. not only sought to provide safe haven for the oppressed of foreign lands, but sanctuary leaders saw their movement as being in the vanguard of the Democratic Party left to spearhead change in the demographics and political policies of the United States by increasing the number of illegal immigrants.
