Hmmm, well you might not want to start by characterizing the mainstream policies as xenophobic. Aside from that being a judgement it is also not likely to win you many friends in the so-called mainstream. Might want to just highlight that there is a difference of opinion on polices for refugee and/or immigrant hosteling practices (rights?) in various nations.

As to understanding the local vs national (or federal) polices, well that would be cause for analysis since each country's particular government sets up their own laws on this. To the degree that local governments can peacefully distance themselves from such policies is a good question for each nation. Any treaties involved? What degree of free speech is tolerated? How are representatives of the local governments involved at the national level?

Starting out with rebellion on this issue is not likely to move a majority of the electorate. However continual calling to deeply held values and the past experience of former immigrants who are now citizens will be more likely to engender dialog.

Best of luck.

Many thanks Karl for your answer and comment. I am not a diplomat. I am an academic or an academic/activist linked with migrant organizations and social movements. My personal position sustained in international fora such as the Global Forum on Migration and Development and the World Social Forum on Migration is that migration studies, more so than many other fields, are fraught with myths that distort reality under a unilateral, de-contextualized, reductionist and biased view of human mobility, particularly labour migration. The dominant political and research agendas in the field tend to reproduce much of the prevailing mythology, ignoring the context in which contemporary migration takes place and its root causes. They assume human mobility is a free and voluntary act oblivious to any kind of structural conditioning and/or national or supranational agents. In a similar way, the multiple economic, demographic, social and cultural contributions made by migrants to host societies and nations are often ignored, hidden or even distorted, to the point where the former are portrayed as a socio-economic burden for destination countries and even turned, in times of crisis, into public scapegoats. In addition, these views tend to ignore the costs and multiple implications posed by migration to countries of origin, migrants themselves and their families; these costs go far beyond the overemphasized “positive” impact of remittances. I have started reviewing US, Candian and European literature on Sanctuary Cities and my main concern is with what could be conceptualized as Global Migration Governance as a top-down approach dominated by the hegemonic powers in contrast with what could be conceptualized as resistance from bellow where civic social movements and solidarity have played a fundamental role. Morover, my main concern is that, as posited by Alexander Bets "global migration governance remains incoherent, poorly understood, and lacks an overreaching vision. From a human rights perspective this is my main concern as an academic and activist.

Great, good luck with that. Might try, "People are hurting, starving and without shelter." Your polysyllabic and highly stylized interpretive descriptions can only play so far. Good academics, but bring it down to the ground level of actionable ideas. Connect the dots from policy to action.

Yes, Karl. That is the main challenge. Fortunately, there are growing movements and initiatives concerned with the human rights of migrants regardless of their ‘legal’ status. One of them is sanctuary cities.

Could you say a bit more about how Sanctuary Cities built from below intersect with the creation of Sanctuary Cities from above? how they relate to each other? Thanks. Great study.

Dear Adriana, I am just starting to address this topic which I also find fascinating. I am starting to review the literature and believe that social movements are a vital component in the emergence and sustainability of sanctuary cities. In this regard it could be envisioned as a bottom-up and top-down phenomenon in tandem with a rebellion against federal migration punitive policies. Here are some selected articles that might be of interest for you:

. Paola Virginia Suárez Ávila "Los avances en la discusión de la Reforma Migratoria Integral en una ciudad santuario de los inmigrantes de Estados Unidos". https://docs.google.com/viewerng/viewer?url=http://www.revistas.unam.mx/index.php/rxm/article/viewFile/54262/48286.

. Darling, J. (2010). A city of sanctuary: the relational re-imagining of Sheffield’s asylum politics. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 35(1), 125–140. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-5661.2009.00371.x

· Darling, J. (2017). Forced migration and the city: Irregularity, informality, and the politics of presence. Progress in Human Geography, 41(2), 178–198. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132516629004

· Hintjens, H., & Pouri, A. (2014). Toward Cities of Safety and Sanctuary. Peace Review, 26(2), 218–224.https://doi.org/10.1080/10402659.2014.906889

· Nyers, P. (2011). No One is Illegal Between City and Nation. Studies in Social Justice, 4(2), 127–143.https://doi.org/10.26522/ssj.v4i2.998

· Squire, V., & Darling, J. (2013). The “Minor” Politics of Rightful Presence: Justice and Relationality in City of Sanctuary. International Political Sociology, 7(1), 59–74. https://doi.org/10.1111/ips.12009

More in line with Harvey’s concept of “Rebel Cities”.

Still I think there is a case for connecting the two issues dynamically: sanctuated cities and rebellious movements from the margin, like e.g. in this article by Ilker Atac on refugees in Vienna: “‘Refugee Protest Camp Vienna’: making citizens through locations of the protest movement” from Citizenship Studies (2016). Link: http://www-tandfonline-com.e.bibl.liu.se/doi/full/10.1080/13621025.2016.1182676 (Ilker is a great researcher and a dear friend of ours, doing really interesting activist research).

And here an interesting article from Los Angeles Times on LA as potentially a sanctuated city:

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-la-sanctuary-city-20170909-story.html

May I suggest the following article:

How cities shape refugee centres "deservingness" and "good aid" in a Sicilian Town, Noemi Casati in journal of Ethnic and migration studies 2017

For contextualization and conceptualization of sanctuary policies I suggest:

Steil, J. P., & Vasi, I. B. (2014). The new immigration contestation: Social movements and local immigration policy making in the United States, 2000–2011. American Journal of Sociology, 119(4), 1104–1155. https://doi.org/10.1086/675301

These authors suggest that sanctuary ordinances are merely "confidentiality laws" or as the Chicago Tribune describe them as "Don't ask, don't share laws".

Many thanks, looking forward to reading your recent work.

Try looking at the interesting stuff being explored by the BABELS team, based in Paris, headed by Michel Agier