Asad L. Asad

Assistant Professor of Sociology

Ph.D., Harvard University

Asad L. Asad is Assistant Professor of Sociology and a faculty affiliate at the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity at Stanford University. His research agenda considers how institutional categories—in particular, citizenship and legal status—matter for multiple forms of inequality. He is the author of the award-winning book Engage and Evade: How Latino Immigrant Families Manage Surveillance in Everyday Life (Princeton University Press). His current research projects examine the effects of immigration enforcement on health, the capacity of immigrant-serving organizations to undo the hardships of the U.S. immigration system, and the role of the federal judiciary in immigration enforcement.

Asad's research has been published in several outlets, including the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Law & Society Review, International Migration Review, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, and Social Science & Medicine, among other outlets. His work has received awards or recognition from the American Political Science Association, the American Sociological Association, the American Society of Criminology, the Law and Society Association, and the Society for the Study of Social Problems. His research has been supported by the National Science Foundation and the Russell Sage Foundation.

Asad teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on race, ethnicity, and immigration, as well as an undergraduate course on research design and preparation. He is the recipient of the Stanford School of Humanities and Sciences Dean's Teaching Award and the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellows Book Award.

Asad earned his B.A. in Political Science and Spanish Language and Culture from the University of Wisconsin, and his A.M. and Ph.D. in sociology from Harvard University.

Latest Publications

Journal Articles & Book Chapters

Johnson, Amy L., Christopher Levesque, Neil A. Lewis, Jr., and Asad L. Asad. 2024. “Deportation Threat Predicts Latino U.S. Citizens and Noncitizens’ Psychological Distress, 2011-2018.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 121(9): e2306554121.

Asad, Asad L. 2020. "Latinos’ deportation fears by citizenship and legal status, 2007 to 2018." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 117(16): 8836-8844.

Asad, Asad L. 2020. “On the Radar: System Embeddedness and Latin American Immigrants’ Perceived Risk of Deportation.” Law & Society Review 54(1): 133-167.

Asad, Asad L. 2019. “Deportation Decisions: Judicial Decision-Making in an American Immigration Court.” American Behavioral Scientist 63(9): 1221-1249. DOI: 10.1177/0002764219835267.

Asad, Asad L., and Eva Rosen. 2019. “Hiding within Racial Hierarchies: How Undocumented Immigrants Make Residential Decisions in an American City.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 45(11): 1857-1882. DOI: 10.1080/1369183X.2018.1532787.

Asad, Asad L., and Jackelyn Hwang. 2019. “Indigenous Places and the Making of Undocumented Status in Mexico-U.S. Migration.” International Migration Review 53(4): 1032-1077.

Asad, Asad L., and Filiz Garip. 2019. “Mexico-U.S. Migration in Time: From Economic to Social Mechanisms.” The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 684: 60-84. DOI: 10.1177/0002716219847148.

Asad, Asad L., and Jackelyn Hwang. 2019. “Migration to the United States from Indigenous Communities in Mexico.” The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 684: 120-145. DOI: 10.1177/0002716219848342.

Asad, Asad L., and Jackelyn Hwang. 2018. "Indigenous Places and the Making of Undocumented Status in Mexico-US Migration." International Migration Review. https://doi.org/10.1177/0197918318801059

Asad, Asad L., and Matthew Clair. 2018. "Racialized Legal Status as a Social Determinant of Health." Social Science & Medicine 199: 19-28.