Sabrina’s research interests include law and society, the sociology of expertise, and social theory.  Sabrina’s dissertation research uses qualitative and quantitative data (observations, interviews, archival analysis, and a large administrative database) to understand immigration removal proceedings as sites of state social control.  Immigration removal proceedings are the primary mechanism that state actors use to deport people, and people undergo the same process whether an immigration judge ultimately orders them deported or not.

Sabrina’s dissertation will deepen our understanding of the state’s social control capacity vis-à-vis its immigration law and enforcement apparatus. Additionally, executive branch court proceedings are understudied in the literature (immigration courts are located within the U.S. Department of Justice). Providing an interior account of how immigration court proceedings operate as modes of state social control is an important step towards understanding how courts throughout the federal executive branch—around 450 in total—extend the state’s social control capacity deeper into our lives.

Sabrina has a master’s degree in public administration from the Harvard Kennedy School and a JD from Yale Law School.  Before beginning graduate school, Sabrina practiced law for a number of years.  Sabrina is the proud daughter of Haitian immigrants and mother to three young children.  She lives in New York City.