Navigating the Vulnerable: Threats of National Security to the Global Sanctuary Effort

Abstract

For the purposes of this paper, I will research how global citizenship principles conflict with self-interested states and their priority of national security in the context of sanctuary policies. This research paper will serve to address the nexus of global citizenship and sanctuary policies within the framework of national security and its virtues. Whereas good global citizenship assumes unrestrained sanctuary, the perceptibility of this is low given the rise in influence of dominant international relations (IR) theories of rationalism, realism, and liberalism which work to guide the behaviour of self-interested states. For this reason, it is apparent that states stress territorial integrity and the greater concern over national security rather than ‘performing’ good global citizenship by operating sanctuary cities. Indeed, many states do host formal sanctuary cities, however, the research presented will argue why and how state governments fail to defend the securitization of the very vulnerable populations they sought to protect. Particular focus will be allocated to asylum-seekers and refugees. No single social or political theory is able to justify the reasoning behind states’ noncompliance with global citizenship and sanctuary principles as state decisions of deportation are complex. In relief of this, several independent variables, including; ethnic and cultural identity, national citizenship, level of education, and presumed level of security concern will be operationalized.