Civil Religion in Tucson Immigrant Advocacy Groups

Abstract

This dissertation focuses on Derechos Humanos, Humane Borders and Samaritans, three Tucson, Arizona-based groups that seek to reduce the deaths of migrants illegally crossing into the United States from Mexico. Though the groups themselves are not religions, they use religious symbolism as part of their public rhetoric, arguing that immigrants are entitled to treatment and protection according to standards that are universal and pan-human. By advocating for the rights of immigrants regardless of their documentation, these groups have set off a wave of controversy that illustrates a significant contradiction in modernity. One the one hand, the modern idea of progress has been rationalized by organizing populations in the form of nation-states, yet modernity has also seen the spread of human rights and humanitarian philosophies stressing the fundamental unity of people irrespective of nationality. As a result, immigrant advocates have been both pilloried as traitors or criminals and praised as ethical visionaries. Based on participant-observation and interviews with members of these three organizations, I argue that although immigrant advocates are comfortable using nation-state-based identities, they do not prioritize them. Rather, they use religious meanings to express the need for a supranational paradigm of value that can guide polities of any scale.