Who We Are

New Sanctuary Movement of Philadelphia builds community across faith, ethnicity, and class in our work to end injustices against immigrants regardless of immigration status, express radical welcome for all, and ensure that values of dignity, justice, and hospitality are lived out in practice and upheld in policy.

We work together to bend the arc of the moral universe towards justice and transform our communities into a place where immigrants, families, friends, and neighbors are safe, respected, and welcomed; where economic, spiritual, and emotional wholeness are realized; and where borders and divisions disappear as we build a community welcoming to everyone. Read our 2017 Statement on Sanctuary. 

Through grassroots organizing led by affected immigrants, we fight and win immigrant justice campaigns with our members across nationality, faith, class, and immigration status. Our community organizing in Philadelphia builds power in immigrant communities to alter the power imbalance, organizes direct action campaigns, builds the individual and collective capacity of the immigrant community and brings immigrant and ally communities together in solidarity to work for change. Read more about our organizing model here.

Our member congregations form the backbone of our interfaith immigrant justice movement. Comprised of even numbers of immigrant and allied citizen faith communities, our member congregations participate in trainings, workshops, campaigns, events, and accompany families facing deportation.

Our member congregations include:

Supporting our congregational organizing is a wide network of individuals, organizations, and faith communities. In living our values, we seek healing and wholeness. We are actively creating the world we all desire. We are an open, inclusive movement, welcoming everyone who shares our values of:

This broad-based grassroots movement is organized by a professional team that facilitates relationships across faith, ethnicity, and class. Click our photos to learn more about us.