"This is the book everyone who cares about human rights, asylum seekers, and global migration has been waiting to see—the foundational text on sanctuary and asylum. Rabben has brilliantly researched the tradition of sanctuary since the beginning of history, as well as the rise of asylum law in secular nation-states, and her extensively documented thesis is that asylum has proven to be easily corrupted by anti-immigrant political movements. Sanctuary is the practice that is being reestablished globally as an effective, strong, and moral defense of human rights. Sanctuarians are rising!"
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Rev. John Fife, cofounder of the 1980s-era Sanctuary Movement in North America
"Refugees are among the main migrant flows in the world today, and often the most controversial. Sanctuary and Asylum is an essential source on this issue. Rabben’s evocative and clear writing conveys the realities that refugees face, both the persecution that sends them on their way and, often, the persecution with which they are received. She also tells the story of people who give sanctuary to refugees and defend their rights and well-being."
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Josiah Heyman, University of Texas at El Paso
"A crucial book on a crucial topic. Absolutely essential to reconstruct both a moral and sensible understanding of how people are received when they are out of their original context."
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David Haines, author of Safe Haven? A History of Refugees in America
"In Sanctuary and Asylum, Rabben offers a rich historical analysis of individual and community responses to the need for protection of migrants and refugees. At times disheartening, at times inspiring, Rabben conveys the fear that drives discrimination and the welcome that follows when we see migrants as our neighbors, our friends, as us."
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Jeanne M. Atkinson, Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINIC)