Shortly after the original Sanctuary Movement, only a handful of anthropologists, sociologists, and journalists critically examined the movement. The recent resurgence of sanctuary activism has sparked renewed scholarly interest in a variety of academic disciplines. To put it briefly, there is, however, insufficient historical scholarship on this large-scale nationwide movement. Our panel will begin to address this historiographic shortage, offering critical historical insights into the 1980s movement and how the past can help us better understand new sanctuary efforts in the twenty-first century. The individual presentations on this panel draw upon extensive archival data from across the country, offering new interpretations of the sanctuary movement. Peering more closely into the work of activists on the ground in the 1980s, Ward-Bucher examines how Central Americans and refugees themselves shaped the sanctuary movement in Philadelphia while Hinojosa brings out the all-important role of Lydia Lopez in the Los Angeles sanctuary struggle. Their two papers alone ask us to consider more closely the Latin American/Latinx leadership of the movement, an aspect of the movement that has long been overlooked in past historical treatments. The two other papers on the panel offer interpretations of the national sanctuary movement as perceived by outsiders versus insiders. Gonzalez’s paper takes up the response of the Religious Right to the sanctuary movement while Barba examines declarations and resolutions of the sanctuary movement to understand how activists themselves viewed their work as part of a millennia-old tradition. Together, the four papers on this panel invite critical and timely conversations about the agency, history, and self understanding within the movement in the past as well as in the present.