I am sociologist of immigration, race/ethnicity, and law, with a longstanding interest in the sociological questions: How does illegality—as a racialized, criminalized, legal mechanism of control—operate both structurally, through laws, policies, and political rhetoric, and socially, through its everyday consequences and interpersonal interactions? And how do its effects continue to shape the lives of immigrants, including those who, in theory, exist beyond the reach of its formal legal designation? My intellectual agenda aims to answer these questions, both by highlighting the real-life impacts of illegality on a diverse range of racialized immigrant groups and by offering novel theoretical insights into this pervasive and life-altering legal, criminalized, and social condition. This agenda drives my current research endeavors and informs a broader program of future work examining how racialization, legal statuses, and state power interact across immigrant generations, policy regimes, and global contexts.
Research Agenda
The Transformative Effects of US Immigration Law (Dissertation)
My dissertation examines how formerly undocumented Mexican and South Korean immigrants experience shifts in their social, emotional, and legal lives after gaining lawful status. Drawing on in-depth interviews and ethnographic observations across California and Texas, I show that legalization transforms individuals’ relationships with state institutions, their understandings of racial identity and hierarchy, and their everyday social landscapes across different socio-political contexts.
Immigrant Detention Centers
In this co-led collaborative project with Rocio Rosales (Associate Professor of Sociology), we examine the lived experiences of immigrants held in detention facilities across the United States. Through ongoing letter-writing, we have corresponded with 54 detained immigrants across six US facilities, documenting their experiences of confinement. While the U.S. government characterizes these sites as administrative holding centers, our findings suggest a far more punitive and opaque system—one that detains, fast-tracks deportations, and routinely violates due process. Initiated before and during the Trump administration, this project also functions as a natural experiment that captures shifting policy impacts on detainee experiences over time. Our first co-authored paper is currently in progress and will be submitted for publication by the end of 2025. We also plan to publish additional papers from this study, including solo-authored work.