Sanctuary for Whom?Applying an “Equity Lens” to Immigration Policy

Across the United States, leaders in government, higher education, and corporate life increasingly speak of applying an “equity lens” to public policy. The concept is straightforward: evaluate who benefits, who is burdened, and whether policies unintentionally deepen inequities for vulnerable populations. Yet one of the most striking inconsistencies in contemporary public discourse is how rarely this same equity framework is applied to the debate over illegal immigration and sanctuary-style policies. The central question remains largely unasked: Sanctuary for whom, and at whose expense?

A genuine equity impact analysis must begin with socioeconomic reality. Many newly arrived immigrant populations, particularly those entering without legal status, experience high rates of poverty, housing instability, language barriers, and educational challenges. Local school districts, health systems, and social service providers often absorb the immediate demand for expanded services, even when those systems are already struggling to meet the needs of historically marginalized U.S. communities. Affordable housing shortages, employment markets, classroom overcrowding, and stretched human service programs are not theoretical concerns; they are daily operational realities in many cities. The expansion of demand on already collapsing systems in not sanctuary, its poor leadership.

This tension exposes a deeper inconsistency in how “equity” language is applied. Advocates who emphasized structural barriers facing minority communities are pretty quiet about how immigration policies interact with those same barriers for historically disadvantaged U.S. populations, including many Black and Indigenous communities that already face persistent disparities in education access, housing affordability, employment opportunity, and public safety outcomes. Their equity framework that selectively evaluates some vulnerable populations while overlooking others now fuels skepticism and drives political narratives.

Your own equity lens requires asking the difficult or courageous questions: Who benefits from current policies or enforcement gaps? And who is harmed? Who bears the indirect costs when already-strained systems are asked to do more? Were the voices of long-standing disadvantaged communities meaningfully included in decision-making? or are policy positions driven by ideological alignment for or against national politics.

DEI or Equity should be more than the performative language used in your equity statements… It was supposed to inform your actions and be the lens through which you view the world… The same policymakers and advocates who said they were committed to equity as a guiding principle, now jump ship when it gets complicated. This makes your selective equity lens continued performance theatre, leaving marginalized communities overlooked and invisible during policy conversations… again!