The word “sanctuary” has taken center stage in recent weeks for the first time in several decades. Across the country, churches, restaurants, campuses, and cities are declaring themselves sanctuary sites in the face of escalating threats from the Trump administration against undocumented immigrants and others vulnerable to deportation.

These actions harken back to the 1980s, when a religious-based Sanctuary Movement sought to shelter refugees fleeing the violence of US-backed wars against leftist insurgencies and governments in Central America.

In response to the Cuban Revolution in 1959 and the subsequent victory of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) against the US-backed Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua in 1979, the United States scaled up its support for anti-communist regimes in the region. Under the Carter and Reagan administrations, the United States sent military advisors and hundreds of millions of dollars in weapons and military aid to the right-wing dictatorships in Guatemala and El Salvador.