Research Program

My research examines how the movement of people and their resources across national borders affects politics, society, and the quality of life. I’m a mixed methods researcher and draw on a variety of data sources and methodologies including qualitative, quantitative, and field experiments to study the social world.

Migration + development

How do migrant remittances affect poverty and public service provision? My research in the migration and development nexus examines the effects of remittances on different facets of economic development. These articles are published in Studies in Comparative International Development (2014) and the American Sociological Review (2016). In a working paper with Jesse Acevedo (Univ. of Denver), we study how global remittance flows affect government social welfare spending in the developing world.

political consequences of international migration

A second line of research studies the political consequences of international migration in migrant origin countries. I attend to the ways in which migrant social ties, organizations, and monetary remittances determine, in part, citizens’ political interest and attitudes (Comparative Migration Studies 2018), political behaviors (International Migration Review 2018), and transnational collective action in public goods provision (American Sociological Review 2018). My first book, Exit and Voice (2019), reveals how migrant cross-border involvement in public goods provision transforms local democratic governance and participation. It received the International Studies Association (ISA) Ethnicity, Nationalism and Migration (ENMISA) Distinguished Book Award (2020), the American Sociological Association (ASA) Sociology of Development Section’s Best Scholarly Book Award (2021) and the American Political Science Association Best Book Award (2020).

In a separate line of research, Clarisa Peréz-Armendáriz (Bates) and I study how migratory processes explain the rise in Mexican vigilante groups called autodefensas (Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 2021) and the role of political grievances in shaping armed collective resistance (working paper).

immigrant integration + citizenship

What explains who, among the eligible immigrant population, naturalizes? I study this question in my second book project with funding from the Russell Sage Foundation. I examine how various sociopolitical threats such as interior immigration enforcement policies, immigration legislation, and anti-immigrant discourse at the local, state, and national level, affect the naturalization process. I’m curious to know how the onset and intensification of threatening social and political contexts recalibrate the meaning and practice of citizenship making it more resonant (and critical) as a mode of protection from deportation and family separation. In another paper published in Social Science & Medicine (2020), Annie Ro, Tim Bruckner (UC Irvine) and I show how immigration enforcement apprehensions in California affect the birth outcomes of Latina women.