Noor Amr

Since the early Middle Ages, churches have often been considered sacred spaces in which persons fleeing political persecution may seek refuge. Today, “church asylum” (Kirchenasyl) in Germany presents a formidable challenge to the federal immigration system, offering protection to thousands of rejected asylum-seekers pending deportation. In recent years, authorities have threatened nuns, pastors, and priests with hefty fines and legal action, summoning them to court and producing a media spectacle surrounding the “crackdown” on sanctuary practice. Yet despite these condemnations, churches continue to successfully contest deportation orders. My research seeks to explore how Kirchenasyl—a form of protection from the state—becomes a means through which rejected asylum-seekers become legible as subjects worthy of political belonging. Through 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork in churches and monasteries across Germany, I investigate how conventional binaries between Christian spaces of worship and state deliberations on asylum are complicated in the legal contestations undergirding Kirchenasyl practice today.