Assistant Professor, Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice
Associate Faculty Member, Department of Sociology
Associate, Population Research Center
Fellow, Center for Health Administration Studies
Faculty Affiliate, Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture; Katz Center for Mexican Studies; Center for Latin American Studies
The University of Chicago
Angela S. García is a sociologist whose research interests include international migration, law and society, race and ethnicity, urban sociology, social policy, and mixed and comparative methods. García studies the consequences of socio-legal inclusion and exclusion for undocumented immigrants across the United States, Mexico, and Spain. Focusing on subnational (state and local) immigration laws and executive administrative action, she charts how immigrants’ everyday lives, incorporation, and well-being are shaped by the legal contexts in which they reside.
García’s book, Legal Passing: Navigating Undocumented Life and Local Immigration Law (University of California Press 2019), comparatively analyzes the effects of accommodating and restrictive local immigration laws from the perspective of undocumented Mexican immigrants, the primary targets of these measures in the US. Her work has been published in Social Problems, ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, International Migration Review, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, and International Migration.
García's book has earned awards from the American Sociological Association (sections on International Migration, Latina/o Sociology, and Racial and Ethnic Minorities), the Eastern Sociological Society, and the Midwest Sociological Society. Her work on the lives of undocumented immigrants in restrictive destinations was cited in a 2015 amicus brief filed by states to the Supreme Court of the United States in support of the expanded Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Deferred Action for Parental Accountability (DAPA) executive actions.
She is an external research associate at the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at University of California San Diego and a scholar affiliate of the Scholars Strategy Network. She holds a PhD in Sociology and a MA in Latin American Studies from the University of California, San Diego.