Urban Solidarity and Mobilities in the Latin American Southern Cone: Local Experiences in Global Debates

In the American Southern Cone countries, solidarity cities have been developed mainly by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in collaboration with cities and local governments. Unlike in European countries, the United States, or Mexico, the idea of sanctuary cities has not been developed in this subregion. However, this situation does not necessarily mean that there are no initiatives by local governments and civil society to protect the human rights of migrants and refugees. The distance between the Northern and Southern approaches could be bridged by developing a different interpretation of the concept of sanctuary cities that we observe in the Southern Cone. This chapter identifies the elements that define sanctuary cities and explores whether the practices found in the Southern Cone are factually similar to those in the North. To address this issue, we conducted a documentary review involving the case studies of Brazil, Chile, and Argentina.