Film Screening & Panel Discussion: Expanding Sanctuary

About the Film: An immigrant mother, Linda Hernandez, becomes an unexpected community leader during a groundbreaking campaign to end the Philadelphia police’s data-sharing with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Expanding Sanctuary tells a rarely seen story of resilience, tracing the Latinx immigrant community’s successful fight to protect families and change legislation against a backdrop of systemic injustice.

At the heart of the film is a personal journey of transformation. What begins as a woman’s quest to bring her mother to the United States for her wedding evolves into a profound awakening. As she works with the immigrant rights organization Juntos, she discovers her voice, power, and agency, channeling her initial hope for personal connection into a larger purpose. Her newfound role as an organizer not only redefines her life but strengthens her entire community’s fight for justice, illuminating the extraordinary potential of collective action and solidarity.

Film completion date: 2023 | Watch the

Following the screening, Kristal Sotomayor, the Director of the film, Linda Hernandez, the protagonist of the film, and Erik Garcia, the Program and Organizing Director at ÒRALE, will lead a dialogue contextualizing SB 54 (California’s sanctuary law), within the fight for expanded sanctuary protections. The discussion will also compare the immigration enforcement and family separation tactics of the first Trump term against the evolving strategies of Trump 2.0.

About the Director, :

Kristal Sotomayor is an award-winning nonbinary Peruvian American director, producer, journalist and curator based in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Named one of “10 Latinx Filmmakers You Should Know About” by HipLatina, they are a 2023 DOC NYC Documentary New Leader Honoree and Rockwood Documentary Leadership Fellow. Their college thesis film To My Motherland streamed on Comcast Xfinity On Demand. Kristal’s short Latinx immigrant rights documentary Expanding Sanctuary won the Philadelphia Filmmaker Award at the 2024 BlackStar Film Festival and is distributed through OTV, Kanopy, and New Day Films. Their short experimental documentary Don’t Cry For Me All You Drag Queens won Best LGBTQ Documentary at the 2025 Poppy Jasper International Film Festival. Kristal’s debut narrative short film Las Cosas Que Brillan is a coming of age story about a Trans Latina mermaid and produced with support from BlackStar. They are in development on their debut feature documentary Untitled PARS Project about surveillance of immigrant communities, produced with support from the Sundance Film Institute. Kristal’s work has also been supported by the Outfest, If/Then, Points North Institute, MDOCS, DCTV, and NeXtDoc.

About (Organizing Rooted in Abolition, Liberation, & Empowerment):

ÒRALE is building and sustaining a thriving immigrant-led movement to end the criminalization of immigrants and secure bold protections and opportunities that allow immigrant communities to thrive.

They are a powerful intergenerational movement of immigrants abolishing oppressive systems and creating liberatory practices grounded in healing, love, and justice.

They envision a world where immigrant communities live in dignity, feel safe, and have opportunities to thrive.

About the :

CHRCL is a legal services support center with recognized expertise in complex litigation, constitutional law, and laws targeting vulnerable populations. These populations include immigrants, refugees, at-risk children, survivors of domestic violence, prisoners in solitary confinement, and members of the LGBT communities.

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