Sergio González
@smgonzalezwi.bsky.social
Historian of Midwestern Latinos, labor, religion, and sanctuary. Author of Strangers No Longer: Latino Belonging and Faith in 20th Century Wisconsin.
🚨 New Book 🚨 Friends - @elprofebarba.bsky.social and I are excited to share news about another publication we've got coming out this fall, “Sanctuary in America: How Activists Defied the Government and Defended Immigrants—And Why It Still Matters” published with Oxford University Press!
🚨 New Book 🚨 Friends, @elprofebarba.bsky.social and I are thrilled to share the publication of “Sacred Refuge: New Histories of the U.S. Sanctuary Movement” coming this November from @nyupress.bsky.social.
This isn't the first time Door County has dealt with an urgent labor need and turned to migrant labor. Visit the Ephraim Historical Foundation this summer and see our special exhibit - "Fields of Arrival: Migration, Work, and Memory in Door County" - to learn more! www.jsonline.com/story/money/...
Work visa delays are crippling Door County businesses well into summer
Some business owners suspected that the Trump administration is deliberately trying to limit legal foreign labor, which the county desperately needs.
jsonline.com
Last day to get your *free* e-book of STRANGERS NO LONGER: Latino Belonging and Faith in Twentieth-Century Wisconsin by @smgonzalezwi.bsky.social! mailchi.mp/illinois/10u... #LatinxStudies #Religion #Midwest #Free #Ebook
Free e-book of IEHS member @smgonzalezwi.bsky.social 's book from University of Illinois Press: mailchi.mp/illinois/10u...
Get a FREE copy of my latest book this month, courtesy of @illinoispress.bsky.social. It's free, really!
University of Illinois Press@illinoispress.bsky.social · 3mo agoGet your *free* e-book of STRANGERS NO LONGER: Latino Belonging and Faith in Twentieth-Century Wisconsin by @smgonzalezwi.bsky.social! mailchi.mp/illinois/10u... #LatinxStudies #Religion #Midwest #Free #Ebook
Glad to see Jay Caspian Kang covering the history of the Sanctuary Movement and the broader story of sacred resistance in @newyorker.com. There's a crop of new scholarship on the topic - including 2 books I'm co-authoring with @elprofebarba.bsky.social, out this fall - that should be of interest!
The New Yorker@newyorker.com · 7mo agoHouses of worship helped start the Sanctuary Movement in America, a moment of interfaith civil disobedience that spread across the country and led to the formation of sanctuary cities. But today the church’s role in politics and dissent is diminished. newyorkermag.visitlink.me/in_Kug
He said this in an interview published yesterday: "It’s actually healing for people to see the people who represent the church and represent God in public really care about this and that they’re not going to shrink from the violence. That they’re not afraid of what’s going to happen."
A conversation with Michael Woolf about ICE and Chicago – Baptist News Global
He joins a long line of clergy who have, in recent weeks, been assaulted by militarized agents from ICE and state police.
baptistnews.com
Jack Jenkins@jackjenkins.me · 9mo agoNote: The pastor being thrown to the ground and arrested here while protesting outside an ICE facility here — who police single out — appears to be Rev. Michael Woolf, a Baptist pastor (he’s ordained by both American Baptist Churches USA and Alliance of Baptists).
This man, Rev. Michael Woolf, wrote this for us earlier this month: "It is up to us to keep our communities safe from this terror, and scripture tells us that God will meet us there—at the picket line, amid the tear gas." sojo.net/articles/opi...
Jack Jenkins@jackjenkins.me · 9mo agoOh wow @reuters.com got the photo here:
Such important reporting by @jackjenkins.me. If you want a legal analysis on religious liberty and immigration, check out our report. lawrightsreligion.org/our-work/rel... (Also, Rev. Kardon in the article was my college roommate and not at all surprised to see her doing this amazing work).
Report on Religious Liberty & Immigration — The Law, Rights & Religion Project
This report is intended as a practical tool for immigration attorneys, criminal defense lawyers, civil rights advocates, faith-based organizations, and houses of worship. Thumbnail image courtesy ...
lawrightsreligion.org
Jack Jenkins@jackjenkins.me · 10mo agoNEW: I spoke to clergy and faith leaders who've joined protests at the Chicago-area ICE facility. Three say they've been shot with pepper balls, sometimes while praying. All say ICE is also violating their religious freedom, and one is arguing it in court. religionnews.com/2025/10/07/i...
Accompaniment, as theologian Roberto Goizueta notes, is “not an abstraction, or a merely ‘spiritual’ reality.” It instead requires a “mutual bodily presence” from all participants who have agreed to work in this partnership.
Nancy French@nancyfrench.bsky.social · 11mo agoA masked ICE agent sprayed David Black, pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Chicago, directly in the face during protests outside the ICE processing facility in Broadview, Illinois. Photo by Ashlee Rezin of the Chicago Sun-Times.
New: 2024-2025 PRRI Public Fellows Anita Huizar-Hernandez, @elprofebarba.bsky.social, and @smgonzalezwi.bsky.social spoke to @goodfaithmedia.bsky.social about the oral history project they conducted to better understand shifts in Americans' views on immigration www.youtube.com/watch?v=r71r...
Good Faith Weekly, 09/12/2025 - Political Unrest + Anita Huizar-Hernandez, Lloyd Barba & Sergio G...
YouTube video by Good Faith Media
youtube.com
Honored for the dedicated episode from @99pi.org about my book and open borders. Give it a listen here: 99percentinvisible.org/episode/633-... Special thanks to producer Lasha Madan. @haymarketbooks.org
Open Borders - 99% Invisible
A border is an idea so powerful that we never even have to see it to believe it. Or believe in it. Global borders can be sites of peace and conflict, violence and celebration, opportunity and confinem...
99percentinvisible.org
Heard a fellow journalist wonder aloud this week why lefty religious leaders aren’t associated with politics like the right. I cover protests from all sides, but I am also the only reporter or one of the only reporters at these lefty events — even when they’re big! religionnews.com/2025/06/10/f...
Faith leaders, lawmakers argue GOP bill benefits the ultra-wealthy by hurting the poor
WASHINGTON (RNS) — ‘May your will be done, and may this bill be killed,’ said the Rev. Teresa Hord Owens, general minister and president of the Disciples of Christ.
religionnews.com
Jack Jenkins@jackjenkins.me · last yr.Relatedly, of all the activists and groups who protested the GOP budget bill on Capitol Hill, the largest and most sustained were almost entirely led by religious groups — and it’s not close. religionnews.com/2025/06/02/f...
Incredibly excited to share that the special issue on Citizenship and Migration that @migrantherstory.bsky.social and I coedited for the Journal of American and Ethnic History is out: scholarlypublishingcollective.org/uip/jaeh/iss.... The introduction we wrote is open access
Volume 44 Issue 4 | Journal of American Ethnic History | Scholarly Publishing Collective
scholarlypublishingcollective.org
As I told the Journal Sentinel, any time we’ve seen immigration officers conceal their identities it’s been accompanied by a further degradation of general public trust in law enforcement. This escalation does nothing but sow fear in our communities. www.jsonline.com/story/news/l...
Is it normal or legal for federal ICE officers to wear masks during operations?
Readers asked us if it's legal for ICE officers to wear masks that cover their faces during raids. Here's what we learned.
jsonline.com
I think the Catholic Church should do this every day in every city
Rich Raho@richraho.bsky.social · last yr..@CBS8 in San Diego reports that due to Bishop Michael Pham’s presence in the courtroom, in effect, cases of migrants today were postponed.
The Border is Everywhere; The Border is the Crisis Join @silkys13.bsky.social, @jwashing.bsky.social, @smgonzalezwi.bsky.social, and Angélica Cházaro as they discuss how our side can fight back against immigration policing and border imperialism. Co-sponsored by @detentionwatchnetwork.org
The first U.S. bishop appointed by Pope Leo XIV—a refugee himself—is mobilizing priests to accompany migrants at immigration court on June 20. (Via Christopher Hale)
2/ @micarosenberg.bsky.social, Perla Trevizo, Gabriel Sandoval, Ronna Risquez, Adrian Gonzalez and I have been reporting on what the government did to these 238 men, beginning with this story today: www.propublica.org/article/trum...
Trump Administration Knew Vast Majority of Venezuelans Sent to Salvadoran Prison Had Not Been Convicted of U.S. Crimes
Homeland Security records reveal that officials knew that more than half of the 238 deportees were labeled as having no criminal record in the U.S. and had only violated immigration laws.
propublica.org
From our spring issue: @elprofebarba.bsky.social and @smgonzalezwi.bsky.social on the sanctuary movement. Sanctuary activists face new challenges under Trump’s second term—but their work has always entailed great personal risk. www.dissentmagazine.org/article/the-...
The Future of Sanctuary - Dissent Magazine
Sanctuary activists face new challenges under Trump’s second term—but their work has always entailed great personal risk.
dissentmagazine.org
When asked, I had to share my thoughts on @uwmadison.bsky.social granting an honorary doctorate to the architect of one of this country's most restrictive pieces of immigration legislation. Really a head-scratching move.
Madison365@madison365.bsky.social · last yr.Jim Sensenbrenner, who introduced the Patriot Act in 2001 and a controversial immigration reform bill in 2005, was honored Friday with an honorary doctorate from the Universtiy of Wisconsin, sparking backlash from immigrant rights advocates. Omar Waheed reports:
Always happy to jump on @wuwmradio.bsky.social to discuss Wisconsin's immigration history, especially when we get to focus on the tradition of sanctuary in our state. Take a listen! www.wuwm.com/government-p...
Making Wisconsin: How sanctuary movements have succeeded and failed
WUWM's Making Wisconsin series dives into the history of sanctuary in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and our country with Sergio González, Marquette University assistant professor of history and author.
wuwm.com
You *have* to check out @elprofebarba.bsky.social's latest in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion. Blazing new paths in the study of sanctuary movements!
Lloyd Barba@elprofebarba.bsky.social · last yr.My latest in JAAR. This time on the “usable sacred histories” of the Sanctuary Movement. Shoutout to @smgonzalezwi.bsky.social and the American Religion workshops at Stanford and Princeton led by @kginlum.bsky.social and Nicole Myers Turner, respectively. academic.oup.com/jaar/advance...
Here's @detentionwatchnetwork.org and local groups statement on ICE's arrest of Mayor Baraka www.detentionwatchnetwork.org/pressroom/re...
Breaking – Immigrant Justice Advocates Respond: Mayor Baraka arrested by ICE outside of NJ detention center
Newark, New Jersey – Today Mayor Baraka was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) outside of Delaney Hall, after accompanying a congressional delegation with the intention to conduct a...
detentionwatchnetwork.org
Prem Thakker ツ@premthakker.bsky.social · last yr.NEW — Trump’s ICE has just arrested Newark Mayor Ras Baraka. Alongside residents and other officials, Baraka has been protesting outside a detention facility that’s set to help Trump’s mass deportation regime.
Collabs w/ @smgonzalezwi.bsky.social are the best! Here’s another one and special thnx to @dissentmag.bsky.social !
Sergio González@smgonzalezwi.bsky.social · last yr.So proud of this co-written piece, put together with my compa @elprofebarba.bsky.social, in the latest edition of @dissentmag.bsky.social. We review the history of the sanctuary movement and what it means for faith-based migrant justice movements today.
Our spring issue, Border Politics, is out today! www.dissentmagazine.org/issue/spring...
Spring 2025 - Dissent Magazine
dissentmagazine.org
So proud of this co-written piece, put together with my compa @elprofebarba.bsky.social, in the latest edition of @dissentmag.bsky.social. We review the history of the sanctuary movement and what it means for faith-based migrant justice movements today.
