During the past ten years, I have worked hard to become a leading expert on mixed-status families, immigration, and race/ethnicity. My research is particularly important given the contentious debates surrounding U.S. immigration policy. Citizens and non-citizens’ lives hang in the balance as the U.S. works to resolve these issues. I have been able to fill a critical gap in the social science literature by studying how mixed-status couples, (i.e., partners with differing legal status, including undocumented Latinos/as partnered and U.S. citizen partners of any race or ethnicity), a hidden population, sustain their families under enforcement-based immigration policies and how these dynamics differ by region, living arrangement, and social status. (e.g., race, gender, etc.).
Beyond my work with mixed-status families, I also conduct research on education and health inequalities.