In May 2025, UWM teaching faculty Brian Mueller (History) traveled with CLACS support to conduct research in Berkeley, California. His destination? The Graduate Theological Union (GTU), whose archives possess an invaluable collection of documents related to the Sanctuary Movement, the subject of Mueller’s forthcoming book.

The Sanctuary Movement took shape in the United States in the 1980s as a joint political and religious campaign to support Central American refugees fleeing conflict. Decades later, the movement and its legacy shape our contemporary conversations about immigration in the U.S.

 

 

 

 

Records from the Sanctuary Oral History Project (about the Salvadoran Humanitarian Aid, Research, and Education [SHARE] Foundation) at the Graduate Theological Union archives

 

 

 

 

Detail from records in the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant Collection at the Graduate Theological Union archives

 

Mueller’s study of the Sanctuary Movement is provisionally titled Sanctuary from Empire: Cold War Refugees and Reagan’s Central American Killing Fields. He shared details about the many useful records he was able to access during his time at the GTU archives:

The GTU Archives possess an invaluable collection of documents related to the Sanctuary Movement. While there, I looked at the Sanctuary Oral History Project Records, the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant Collection, and the SHARE Foundation Collection.

The documents in these collections provided evidence not only about migrants and refugees receiving sanctuary in the United States in the 1980s, but also U.S. citizens who offered protection to Salvadorans as they returned home amid a civil war.

As revealed through the archival documents, sanctuary extended well beyond the United States as groups like the SHARE Foundation followed in the footsteps of earlier missionaries that risked their lives to protect innocent Central Americans during U.S.-sponsored wars in the region.

While Mueller’s completed research is forthcoming, you may be interested in reading this related article on sanctuary cities in the U.S., published in August 2025 by a historian of migration.