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Mayors across America are vowing to resist efforts by President Trump

to crack down on so-called sanctuary cities which offer refuge to illegal immigrants.

I'm Simon Watson, I've been looking at the history of San Francisco, one of the cities targeted

by Trump.

Block funding for sanctuary cities. We block the funding. No more funding.

We will end the sanctuary cities that have resulted in so many needless deaths.

America's sanctuary cities date back to the 1980s. They're the result of a movement that started at

churches across the US. Many religious leaders believed it was their Christian

duty to take in refugees from the civil Wars then raging in Central America, refugees like Jose Artiga.

The Desquois came to my town with five names.

The other four, the day after they were found with their bodies

cut into pieces. I was not at home. I stay close to the Catholic University because I had a Saturday test.

The death was, you know, search, torture my family, took my younger sister away, pressure in the family to tell where I was but of course I was not in the house

so there was no way I could come out. Eventually they released my sister. My sister went to where I was staying and told me you have to leave the country because you are in trouble.

After fleeing El Salvador, Jose ended up living secretly in the USA at the chapel at the

University of California in Berkeley.

In March 1982, the church held a press conference to publicly declare itself a sanctuary

and Jose risked deportation to tell his story.

It was a big gathering not only of the parishioners at the university Lutheran Chapel,

but all the different churches in the Bay Area.

Our strategy was to educate and present our basic testimony, you know, a teacher, you know, a student like myself telling, you know, we are not part of any arm insurrection or anything like that.

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