Nye, Jennifer L.Becerra, Diana SierraAntropova, Alina2025-03-062025-03-062024-0510.7275/26da-k946https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14394/55674This thesis centers the sanctuary experiences of Lucio Pérez, a community organizer and immigrant from Guatemala who was targeted for deportation in 2017 after over 15 years in the U.S. Using testimonios, a form of oral history, I create a composite of the three years he spent in sanctuary in the First Congregational Church in Amherst, Massachusetts. The goal of this research is to understand how sanctuary works as a tactic for struggling for immigration justice, especially when explored through an abolitionist lens, an intersection that is under-researched in the literature. I seek to answer the following research questions: ● What makes sanctuary a viable and effective tactic in the fight for immigration justice? ● What does the on-the-ground experience of organizing to provide sanctuary look like? ● How does sanctuary fit into the matrix of abolitionist social thought? ● How does this connection between sanctuary and abolition create new theoretical avenues for conceptualizing immigration justice? First, I justify using a local scale of analysis, a case study, and testimonios as my methods, as well as my theoretical frame of abolition. I then provide the historical and geographical contexts of the Sanctuary Movement, New Sanctuary Movement, and its outcomes in Massachusetts and western Massachusetts. Lastly, I argue for an Abolitionist Sanctuary Model, with four tenets: physical and direct sanctuary, a politicized contestation of the criminalized immigration system, extending beyond the individual sanctuary seeker, and advocating for abolitionist visions of change. Ultimately, I apply the Abolitionist Sanctuary Model to Lucio Pérez’s case, proving its saliency as a framework.en-USAbolitionist Sanctuary Modeltestimonioabolitionsanctuarywestern MassachusettsThesis