Angela S. García

Assistant Professor of Social Service Administration, University of Chicago

Areas of Expertise:

Connect with Angela

About Angela

García researches state and local immigration-orientated laws in the United States and Spain. Her work investigates how unauthorized immigrant actors experience the application of restrictive and accommodating policies on the ground. Her dissertation research demonstrates how the legal contexts of immigrants’ receiving communities intersect with civic incorporation in one of the first comparative studies of the empirical outcomes of local immigration ordinances. García’s areas of expertise include international migration; law and society; race and ethnicity; Latino/a sociology; and political sociology. Her research has been published in Ethnic and Racial Studies and the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies; along with book chapters with Harvard University Press and Lynne Reinner Publishers. García has briefed Congressional staffers on the outcomes of state and local immigration measures and has commented on this issue in Spanish and English-language media.

Contributions | No Jargon Podcast | In the News | Publications

Contributions

Comparing the 2013 Senate Immigration Legislation to Piecemeal Bills in the House of Representatives

John D. Skrentny
Tom K. Wong
Linda F. Naval

Basic Facts Brief, August 2013

In the News

Opinion: "Crime and Sanctuary: Amend Policies, Don't End Them," Angela S. García (with David Scott Fitzgerald), San Diego Union-Tribune, July 25, 2015.

Research discussed by "Estudio Muestra Dificultades de Inmigrantes Indocumentados," Univisión San Diego, March 27, 2012.

Research discussed by Yurina Melara, in "Indocumentados Viven con Temor en el Sur de California," La Opinión, March 26, 2012.

Research discussed by Elizabeth Aguilera, in "Restrictive Laws Push Undocumented in Shadows," U-T San Diego, March 26, 2012.

Publications

"Hidden in Plain Sight: How Unauthorized Migrants Strategically Assimilate in Restrictive Localities" Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (forthcoming).

Finds that, in hostile receiving communities, unauthorized Mexican immigrants present the culture of the dominant core population through their public, outer selves as a protective strategy rather than, as assimilation theory would have it, incorporating the dominant culture into their inner selves.

Senate and House Immigration Reform Efforts in the 113th Congress: An OverviewSenate and House Immigration Reform Efforts in the 113th Congress: An Overview (with Linda Naval, John D. Skrentny, and Tom K. Wong), Scholars Strategy Network, July 2013.

Offers a side-by-side comparison of Senate and House immigration reform efforts in the 113th Congress.

"Return to Sender? A Comparative Analysis of Immigrant Communities in ‘Attrition through Enforcement’ Destinations" Ethnic and Racial Studies 36, no. 11 (2013): 1849-1870.

Examines the link between subnational policy structures in U.S. destinations and immigrants’ settlement and residency behavior, and indicates that immigrants do not alter the duration of time they spend in receiving locales or change their state of residence due to restrictive subnational policies. Rather, economic and social factors more prominently shape immigrants’ settlement and residency patterns.

Life as an Undocumented Immigrant: How Restrictive Local Immigration Policies Affect Daily LifeLife as an Undocumented Immigrant: How Restrictive Local Immigration Policies Affect Daily Life (with David Keyes), Center for American Progress, 2012-02-29.

Demonstrates the on-the-ground consequences of restrictive state and local policies and ramped-up federal enforcement, including immigrants’ negative perceptions of police, association of routine activities with anxiety and deportation, and strategies of “passing” to mitigate the discovery of unauthorized status.

Pressure from the Inside: The Subnational Politics of Immigration in Recession without Borders: Mexican Migrants Confront the Economic Downturn, edited by David S. FitzGerald, Rafael Alarcón, and Leah Muse-Orlinoff (CCIS and Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2011), 37-62.

Questions the efficacy of restrictive immigration laws in Oklahoma, particularly HB 1804 of 2007, and argues that these legal norms do not discourage immigration to the state or put the labor market out of unauthorized immigrants’ reach. Despite such inefficacy, the analysis indicates that these restrictions have made the local climate increasingly inhospitable for immigrant communities.