Phil is Managing Director, Research Evaluation and Data Analytics.  Before joining the Acacia Center for Justice, he served as Professor of Sociology at UMass-Boston with a specialization in the analysis of immigration enforcement and the rights of migrants and asylum seekers.

Phil is currently exploring the uses of qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) for the analysis of asylum jurisprudence (see, Explaining Asylum Jurisprudence: a Qualitative Comparative Analysis, Laws, forthcoming).  Phil’s research agenda has also been influenced by his experience with immigrant serving organizations in the nonprofit sector. In the early 2000s, he served as policy and development director for the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild which was a leading source of technical assistance for immigration lawyers on the immigration consequences of criminal convictions and on VAWA and U-visa relief for immigrant survivors of domestic violence.  He also served as a policy and communications associate for Catalyst Miami which was a hub for research and advocacy on the impact of the Clinton-era immigration and welfare reform laws for immigrants in the South Florida area.

Selected Publications

Limits of Control (International Migration, 2012)
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1468-2435.2011.00696.x

Immigration Enforcement and the Complication of National Sovereignty (American Quarterly, 2008)
https://doi.org/10.1353/aq.0.0031

Immigrant Households and Hardships After Welfare Reform (International Journal of Social Welfare, 2003).
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-9671.00286

Modern Migrations, Black Interrogations (Temple University Press, 2024; edited with Jamella Gow)
https://tupress.temple.edu/books/modern-migrations-black-interrogations

Black Interdictions: Haitian Refugees and anti-Black racism on the High Sea (Lexington Press, 2022)
https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781793630735/Black-Interdictions-Haitian-Refugees-and-Antiblack-Racism-on-the-High-Seas