This is a book about policing, law enforcement, and immigration enforcement. I
owe a deep debt of gratitude to the local officials, officers, leaders, immigrant organizers,
and immigrants in Nashville who facilitated access to people, spaces, and
data so that I could conduct this project.
I began my fieldwork as a graduate student at the University of California, Los
Angeles and finished this book as an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
On the journey from L.A. to Philadelphia, I’ve had the good fortune of
finding a place in a number of intellectual communities and institutions. Scholars
often acknowledge that it takes “a village” to write a book. In my case, it took a
universe of people.
The UCLA Sociology Department is a special place, particularly for young
scholars doing work on international migration. I cannot speak more positively
about the training and intellectual community there and in the broader community
of interdisciplinary scholars that formed part of the Migration Working Group.
I developed this project through numerous conversations with friends and colleagues,
including Rocio Rosales, Laura Bekes, Nazgol Ghandnoosh, Marisa Pineau,
Anthony Alvarez, Sylvia Zamora, Wes Hiers, Forrest Stuart, Anthony Ocampo,
Jooyoung Lee, Arpi Miller, and Renee Reichl Luthra. My dissertation committee,
Roger Waldinger, David Hern?ndez, Rubén Hern?ndez-Leon, and Stefan Timmermans,
were great supporters of this work.