Jozef Callan Robles
Incoming UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellow, UC San Diego
PhD Candidate in Sociology, UC Irvine
I study how legal status and racialization shape everyday life. In my dissertation, The Remnant Logics of Immigrant Illegality, I argue that legalization doesn’t remove the dynamics of illegality; it reshapes and reproduces many of its core logics.
SELECTED HIGHLIGHTS
Award-Winning Research
Winner, 2025 ASA Latino/a Sociology Student Paper Award
Recent Grants & Fellowships
American Sociological Association Minority Fellowship
Russell Sage Dissertation Grant
Featured Publications
Remnants of Illegality: DACA, Legal Status, and Unlearning Illegality (Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies)
Legal Control and Migrants (De Gruyter Handbook of Political Control)
Teaching
My average student evaluation is 3.80/4 across 11 courses, showing consistently strong teaching and positive student feedback.
FEATURED RESEARCH
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 over 65 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. 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.
