My book, based on my dissertation, explores the contradictory and distinctive policy processes and laws that govern high-skilled immigration. It focuses on an essential yet understudied area: how and why state immigration laws, along with temporary and permanent visa programs, shape the intricate and often burdensome pathways to lawful permanent residency for high-skilled immigrants. Specifically, I aim to explain why high-skilled immigrants encounter a variety of dissimilar legal processes and experiences in their pursuit of permanent status.
The book also examines the impact of the diversification of visa policies into temporary and permanent categories since the 1990s, analyzing how these changes influence high-skilled immigrants’ legal, work, and family trajectories. Portions of this research have already been published as articles in two leading journals in the field, Ethnic and Racial Studies and International Migration, underscoring the relevance and scholarly contribution of this work.