Philadelphia’s 40-year history of protecting undocumented immigrants began with churches hiding refugees from El Salvador

In the midst of a civil war, married couple Ernesto and Linda Fuentes fled their home country of El Salvador and headed for Philadelphia, via Mexico, in November 1983.

Ernesto was an activist who dispensed food and medicine in Salvadoran refugee camps. Linda was a union organizer for banks and clothing factories.

The Salvadoran government viewed activists, especially suspected guerrilla fighters and union leaders, as threats to its regime. It placed activists’ names on “death squad hit lists.” The couple decided to leave after receiving threatening letters and phone calls.

With false documents and the help of a humanitarian church group, they arrived at the Tabernacle United Church in West Philadelphia on May 12, 1984. The congregation declared itself a public sanctuary for undocumented refugees from El Salvador and Guatemala. An estimated 500,000 undocumented Salvadorans lived in the U.S. around that time.

The Fuenteses used the pastor’s office as their bedroom. Church members were instructed to keep the doors locked and not admit strangers, including the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

As a historian of race and policing in Philadelphia after the Civil Rights Movement, and the daughter of an immigrant, I’ve been exploring Philly’s history of sanctuary and how religious congregations, activists and city officials have supported local refugees over the past 40 years.

A ‘welcoming city’ for immigrants

Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker has emphasized since May 2025 that Philadelphia is a certified “welcoming city.” She notably does not call Philadelphia a “sanctuary city.”

Welcoming cities have immigrant-friendly initiatives that make education, housing, workers’ rights, legal aid and language services accessible to immigrants and refugees without using the term “sanctuary city” in their laws and policies.

The presumed goal of this phrasing is to keep Philadelphia off the Trump administration’s radar and protect its US$2.2 billion in federal funding for health and human services.

However, Philly was, at various points, an official sanctuary city.

In 2014, then-Mayor Michael Nutter signed an executive order detailing that local police were not required to assist Immigration and Customs Enforcement unless the case involved a warrant or violent felon.

Nutter later rescinded Philadelphia’s sanctuary city status in an effort to dissuade congressional Republicans from passing a House bill that would deny sanctuary cities federal money earmarked for law enforcement and recidivism reduction. However, the next mayor, Jim Kenney, reinstated the order on Jan. 4, 2016.

Throughout 2017, President Donald Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions used executive orders, speeches and the immigration raid Operation Safe City to force Philadelphia officials to assist ICE or lose federal grants.

In 2018, Philadelphia won a lawsuit against the Trump administration that denied ICE access to police databases to find undocumented immigrants and prohibited city employees from assisting ICE.

Roots of sanctuary cities

The sanctuary movement started back in the 1960s. But it wasn’t immigrants who were seeking sanctuary. It was Americans.

Around 1968, drafted resisters who were opposed to fighting in the Vietnam War sought refuge in churches in the U.S. Northeast. One of the earliest cases involved Robert Talmanson, who received sanctuary in Boston’s Arlington Street Unitarian Church. He was later arrested by U.S. marshals and local police and incarcerated in Virginia for three years.

In November 1971, Berkeley, California, became the first sanctuary city in the country when 12 local churches inspired the City Council to pass a resolution offering sanctuary to draft resisters. It also banned city employees from “assisting in the investigation or arrest of any sanctuary seeker.”

In the two decades that followed, several Quaker, Presbyterian, Catholic and Jewish congregations across America and Canada used their houses of worship as sanctuaries for Central American refugees who were fleeing civil war, government repression and genocide.

Philly joins national movement

Frustration and outcry over the United States’ low acceptance rates of Central American asylum-seekers sparked Philadelphia’s sanctuary movement.

In January 1984, members of Tabernacle United Church, where the Fuentes couple would soon take refuge, voted to join the national sanctuary network. As the Rev. James MacDonald explained at the time, the congregation chose to “violate a human law in order to respond in obedience to God’s law.”

By May, the First United Methodist Church of Germantown also became a sanctuary church. A few months later, the church sheltered a young Guatemalan couple, Joel and Gabriela, and their 3-year-old daughter, Lucy. Joel, an activist who worked with unions and student groups, had been tortured by Guatemala City police.

On Jan. 14, 1985, INS staged nationwide raids of sanctuaries and arrested 60 undocumented immigrants and 16 sanctuary workers – including pastors, nuns and priests – for violating immigration laws. Joel and his family were among those seized. They were released when church members bailed them out as they awaited deportation hearings.

A new pathway to citizenship

By the mid-’80s, 42,000 people from 2,000 religious institutions in 60 cities nationwide had joined the sanctuary movement.

On Nov. 6, 1986, President Ronald Reagan signed into law the Immigration Reform and Control Act. It granted undocumented immigrants who arrived in the U.S. before 1982 one year to apply for amnesty. If eligible, they would begin a five-year pathway to citizenship.

Approximately 3 million people successfully became naturalized citizens through the amnesty program.

In the Philadelphia area, at least 5,000 to 7,000 people were undocumented in 1986. Advocates at the nonprofit Nationalities Service Center and American Friends Service Committee noted that many immigrants wanted to apply for amnesty but feared the program was a trick.

A decade later, immigration enforcement got tougher.

Local police assist ICE

In 1996, Congress passed Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. This granted local police the right to assist immigration officials in arresting and detaining unauthorized immigrants.

As of April 2026, over 1,600 law enforcement agencies in 39 states and two U.S. territories have a 287(g) agreement with ICE. The program offers local police free training in ICE procedures along with funding for equipment, vehicles and overtime pay.

While the Philadelphia Police Department has never signed a Section 287(g) agreement, about 68 Pennsylvania agencies have, including in neighboring Delaware County.

But these agreements aren’t always long-lasting. Between January and March 2026, two departments in Bucks and Chester counties rescinded their agreements with ICE to make residents feel safe after American-born protesters Renée Good and Alex Pretti were killed during ICE operations in Minneapolis.

Community activism continues

According to Pew Charitable Trusts, nearly 16% of Philadelphia’s 1.6 million residents are immigrants, largely from Asia and the Caribbean.

The exact number of undocumented immigrants in Philadelphia is unknown. However, the Migration Policy Institute estimates that 250,000 immigrants in Pennsylvania – 1.5% of the state’s total population – are undocumented.

Since January 2025, ICE crackdowns in sanctuary cities such as Los Angeles, Portland, Chicago and New York have resulted in the number of people held in ICE detention jumping from 40,000 to 73,000 people in January 2026.

Citizens and advocacy groups have stepped up to protect immigrants from ICE. The Party for Socialism and Liberation and the AR-12-toting members of the Black Lion Party for International Solidarity participated in protests in Philadelphia. Public school students from Northeast and Edison high schools have led anti-ICE walkouts.

On Jan. 29, 2026, City Council members Kendra Brooks and Rue Landau introduced an “ICE Out” package. The bills aim to codify the right of police to not share immigration, citizenship and personal data with ICE, or detain and hand over arrested individuals to the federal agency.

The legislation also proposes a ban on ICE agents who wear masks or hide their badges, use unmarked cars and city vehicles, or use municipal spaces as staging areas for enforcement and raids. And it would prohibit city employees from giving ICE access to libraries, shelters, health centers and recreation centers without a judicial warrant.

Community activists have long used civil disobedience and humanitarian aid to protect undocumented immigrants who are searching for a fresh start in the U.S.

An interfaith network inspired Philadelphia to become a sanctuary city. Today, churches such as Center City’s Arch Street United Methodist Church and North Philly’s Church of the Advocate, along with other congregations, uphold this tradition while a multicultural community across the city continues that fight.

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