Friends! Inherited Inequality makes its debut Sept 16 🎉 Join me for an open & honest conversation about the power & limits of the two-parent family for improving child outcomes & addressing one of America’s most intractable problems: racial inequality Hope to see you there!

ICE is seeking increasing amounts of data from localities. “We’re seeing more and more signs, especially in ‘sanctuary cities,’ where the federal government’s requests are getting bigger and bigger,” says an immigration law expert.

Law is central to today’s social crises—from democratic backsliding to immigrant exclusion. This paper shows how cultural sociology offers rigorous explanations of, and insights into how to tackle, law-related crises. Hope it’s useful to law and society scholars and others osf.io/preprints/so...

W/ immigrant detention constantly in the news, I share my portfolio of peer-reviewed research on harms of this system. In @jamanetworkopen.com, we show alarmingly high prevalence of poor health, mental illness & PTSD for all, w/ esp high rates for those detained 6+mo. jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

Reminder that this is illegal. The IRS has statutory rules that forbid them-except under very specific conditions-from sharing data. The reason is very practical-if people don't trust the IRS they will avoid 'voluntarily' paying taxes. The tax system falls apart otherwise.

Immigration enforcement *is* a public health crisis, and a longstanding one at that. It harms both physical and mental health, and its effects burden immigrants and the U.S. born alike.

The White House has ordered the US Dept. of Justice to prioritize denaturalization: voiding the citizenship of US citizens. Who will it denaturalize? "Any" case that it "determines to be sufficiently important". Point 10 leaves the criteria opaque and arbitrary. substack.com/redirect/169...

Listen to the Ideas #Podcast with Asad L. Asad and @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social Network editor, Caleb Zakarin. They discuss how undocumented immigrants in the United States navigate surveillance and punishment, providing an extraordinary portrait of fear and hope on the margins. hubs.ly/Q03sKGLP0

It's publication day for Indefensible Spaces: Policing and the Struggle for Housing, available in paper & free .epub! It traces a century of struggle over Los Angeles' periphery, culminating in the use of policing to expel and repress Black tenants. Here's a look at its chapters:

For nearly 60 days, no food, fuel, medicine or other items has entered the Gaza Strip, blocked by Israel. Aid groups are running out of food to distribute. Markets are nearly bare. Palestinian families are left struggling to feed their children.

New article theorizing the “spatial burdens” of state institutions. Drawing on 125 interviews and over 400 hours of observations among court-involved people in the Bay Area, we show how space shapes poverty governance and institutional inequality. www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

Some commentary is focusing on how the Supreme Court order last night seems to indicate a vibe shift among some justices on whether courts can rely on representations made by Trump administration lawyers.

‘If I die, I want a loud death’: Gaza photojournalist killed by Israeli airstrike

Trump is Quietly Building a Deportation Army out of State and Local Agencies Enrollment in the 287(g) program, which deputizes local police to do federal immigration enforcement, has exploded in recent weeks. austinkocher.substack.com/p/trump-is-q...

I have joined several dozen scholars across the social sciences in signing on to an amicus brief supporting both immigration and birthright citizenship in State of Washington v. Trump. Read the brief here: www.courtlistener.com/docket/69621...

This is a wrongheaded move that will simultaneously sever noncitizens’ relationship to state institutions, threaten the well-being of immigrant families, and deprive Social Security beneficiaries of a tax base that has allowed the program to remain solvent. Shame. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/08/u...

NEW in Law & Society Review: U.S. Latinos are less likely to report institutional involvement as immigration policing intensifies—but those involved don’t spend less time. Spatial & temporal variation in formal control shapes system involvement. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

The Eastern Sociological Society has named @asadasad.bsky.social's book Engage and Evade: How Latino Immigrant Families Manage Surveillance in Everyday Life the Winner of the Mirra Komarovsky Book Award! Learn more about this groundbreaking book: press.princeton.edu/books/paperb...

Thanks to @erikaandiola.bsky.social, @nicoleramos.bsky.social, and @daralind.bsky.social for joining us! Read more about the discussion here: stanforddaily.com/2025/02/10/i...

1/8. This week I had a few different conversations with scholars who, in the face of the attacks on science and institutions of learning in the U.S., are wondering what to do. One suggestion I have is: keep doing your work. It matters in and of itself. Why do I say that? A few reasons.

Honored to welcome @daralind.bsky.social, @erikaandiola.bsky.social, & @nicoleramos.bsky.social to Stanford today to reflect on what immigration advocacy and reform will look like over the next few years—and where it might go thereafter. Grateful for the chance to learn from these inspiring leaders.

TRAC is back. tracreports.org

A report summarizing our systems navigator pilot in a public defender’s office in San Jose. We offer recommendations for the county and other public defense agencies across the country. osf.io/preprints/so...

We made you another fact sheet -- this one about the declaration issued by the Acting DHS Sec that came out Friday that the U.S. is facing a "mass influx" endangering "all 50 states," and calling on states/localities to help www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/mas...

New from me: The Laken Riley Act could hand decisions about the enforcement of many immigration laws to state attorneys general and any one of 677 federal district judges around the country; including decisions to issue visa bans to entire nations. The consequences could be extremely far-reaching.

Sharing my new open-access article on "The limits and possibilities of segmented assimilation theory". www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Because the Laken Riley Act has significant D support, there hasn’t been much attention to what the bill would actually do. Which is bad! Because, like, it would allow Ken Paxton to sue the feds to stop issuing all visas to China! From @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb...

Even if this bill never becomes law, we show in PNAS that it likely contributes to an “everyday” environment of deportation threat that is uniquely distressing for Latino U.S. citizens and noncitizens. With Amy L. Johnson, Chris Levesque, and @neillewisjr.bsky.social. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

After the elections, some started to blame the immigrant rights movement. NILC President Kica Matos responds in @commondreams.org.web.brid.gy. As attacks on immigrants escalate in the coming weeks, we'll be thankful there's a movement fighting for justice. www.commondreams.org/opinion/dems...

I really hope this data does not end up in the wrong hands. To be clear, I think the intentions here are good. But, as @asadasad.bsky.social has written about, surveillance systems are one of the tricky things Latino immigrant families already have to manage. press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

What Will Mass Deportations Look Like? - Immigration Impact @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social @immcouncil.bsky.social immigrationimpact.com/2024/12/06/w...

NEW FROM ME: The government will do things that hurt people. But knowing exactly what it is doing — & therefore who’s most at risk — is at the foundation of fighting against it. Anything else is doing Trump’s job for him. Here’s a start. www.nytimes.com/2024/11/21/o...

We have been interviewing immigration advocates about what it means to them to change the U.S. immigration system. Our first report is now online. We are collecting feedback from scholars and immigration advocates alike to incorporate into future work. Comments welcome! osf.io/preprints/so...

Today marks 4 years since the publication of PRIVILEGE & PUNISHMENT, which shows how attorney-client relationships reproduce inequality—and how to transform public defense, courts, and broader society. Check out this comic summarizing the book … press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

Attended my first ASC, where I met some very generous and generative critics. Thanks to Caitlin Patler, Sara Wakefield, Dan Martinez, and Kristin Turney for the early morning discussion of my book ENGAGE & EVADE (@princetonupress.bsky.social) in San Francisco!

My first post! We just published a new article that leverages the case of liberal/leftist prospective law students to examine how young adults reconcile their morals with their occupational choices—and with what consequences for occupational sorting and change. academic.oup.com/ser/advance-...

NEW in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, we show how national changes in deportation threat entail greater psychological distress for Latino U.S. citizens & noncitizens. With Amy Johnson, Chris Levesque, & @neillewisjr.bsky.social. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...