Review by Choice Review
Because of civil war in El Salvador, the number of Central Americans seeking safety in the US increased dramatically. Individuals would enter the US looking for political asylum, only to be deported (by the Immigration and Naturalization Service) back to the very place they were fleeing. In many instances, such deportation endangered their lives, even though the US is a signatory nation to the 1948 Geneva Convention, specifically forbidding such deportation. Corbett and others became involved providing these refugees sanctuary (i.e., protecting them from deportation). Charged with conspiracy and recruiting smuggling, transporting, and harboring illegal aliens, Corbett and others were tried in 1985. Most were convicted and put on probation; Corbett received acquittal. Although the sanctuary movement should be understood by Americans because of the nation's philosophical foundations, Davidson's book is not going to be of much help. Overly detailed, frequently biased, rarely documented or researched adequately, the book lacks focus and direction. A better book may be Renny Golden's Sanctuary (CH, May '86). -D. R. Jamieson, Ashland College
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
The wisdom of this report on the movement to shelter refugee Salvadorans and Guatemalans in U.S. churches lies in its author's impartiality. The opinions in the text are, until the last paragraph, always attributed, never Davidson's. In that paragraph, she draws the lesson her scrupulous recording of words and actions-- especially those of the arthritic Quaker ex-rancher Jim Corbett, whose initiative spurred the entire movement-- has made inevitable: ``The peaceful actions of individuals, or small groups, could make as much of a difference as the cries of thousands.'' Before that conclusion, she shows how Corbett learned of the realities of Central American despotism and official U.S. complicity with it, did what he could to save those victimized by the despots, and, through his example, spurred others to do likewise. Eventually, he and several he inspired wound up in court, charged with conspiracy to violate immigration law; many, not including Corbett, were convicted. An inspiring story told efficiently and intelligently. Notes; to be indexed. RO.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Because the United States supports the repressive regimes of El Salvador and Guatemala, the immigration service deports, to almost certain imprisonment or execution, political refugees from these countries, charges the author. In an engrossing history of private efforts to rescue these illegal aliens, in defiance of government policy, Davidson, a freelance writer, recounts the suffering that drives them to flee and to risk dangers in crossing our border and persecution by American authorities. She focuses on Quaker Jim Corbett, a retired rancher and cofounder of the Sanctuary Movement, who, despite crippling arthritis, has worked incessantly since 1980 to recruit rescue support and funds, and to establish what has become a national network of shelters among churches of all denominations. The movement's activities led to the trial in 1986 of Corbett and seven other Sanctuary workers by an Arizona federal court whose convictions are under appeal. Sanctuary, writes Davidson, continues to operate underground on behalf of victims of the Central American wars. (September) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
In one of the most notable grassroots movements of this decade, first individuals and then groups and churches across the entire nation coordinated their efforts to provide refuge for Central Americans fleeing the conditions of their homelands. Both these books provide a sympathetic look at the sanctuary movement, from its origin in the early 1980s through the 1985-86 court trial that convicted many of its leaders of smuggling and harboring illegal aliens. The books are similar in scope, devoting nearly half their pages to the court trial. But while Davidson emphasizes the experience and convictions that moved Jim Corbett and other key figures to set up a modern-day ` ` Underground Railroad,'' Crittenden only summarizes these influences, betraying at times an irritating ignorance of the American religious scene as she focuses on the movement's legal and ethical aspects. Still, Crittenden's broader analysis of the prosecution's strategies and rationales results in a more even-handed treatment overalland tips the scales in her favor. Cynthia Widmer, Williamstown, Mass. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A moving story of the work of the sanctuary movement, and particularly of Jim Corbett's role in it, culminating in the federal trial that convicted many of its minions for bringing illegal aliens across the southwest border. While Davidson covers all of the main figures of the movement--Rev. Fife, Sister Nacgorski, Father Quinones, Maria Aguilar, et al.--her main focus here is on Corbett, the media darling of the sanctuary movement since admiring portraits of him were rendered on 60 Minutes and in People magazine. Corbett, an ""agnostic Quaker,"" had made many trips to the border to smuggle in Salvadorans and Guatemalans attempting to escape ""death squads"" back home. Many churches--led by Fife's Southside Presbyterian in Tucson--had begun to harbor these refugees to protect them from the claws of the Immigration Service, which, due to the embarrassing nature of these flights in the light of Reagan's Central American policy, insisted that these refugees were only economically motivated. Border patrolmen who would arrest the ""border breakers"" of the movement were fond of telling them: ""You people are messing with my children's future."" But more likely than not, those Salvadorans who were sent back had no future--their fate was usually to be killed for having dared to leave. Ironically, though Corbett was a major force behind the movement (even photographed by journalists in the act of border breaking), the government failed to hand down indictments against him. Davidson chronicles the six-month trial of the other sanctuary defendants, in which the infamous Judge Carroll circumscribed the defense's case to the point of rendering it impotent. Davidson relates this tale with all the skill of a John McPhee, making it a much more personal story than the concurrent Sanctuary by Ann Crittenden (reviewed above). Includes photographs (unseen) of the many participants. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
Review by Booklist Review
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Library Journal Review
Review by Kirkus Book Review
