I am sociologist interested in international migration, refugee studies, childhood, families, the life-course, and law and policy. I study the legal and political struggles that lie at the heart of classifying migration flows, how immigration laws shape people's lives, the role of volunteers, legal advocates, NGOs, and for-profit companies in migration governance, how immigrants impact local communities and prompt responses from locals ranging from solidarity to conflict, and how children differ from adults as migratory actors and legal subjects in their own right.

My research has been generously funded by several agencies, including the American Bar Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation, and the National Science Foundation, and has been published in journals like Social Forces, Social Problems, International Migration Review, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, and Ethnic & Racial Studies, as well as in book chapters and policy reports. My achievements were most recently recognized by the American Sociological Association’s Children & Youth Section early career award (honorable mention), and by the University of Chicago with the Dean’s Early Career Research Award and the J. & J. Neubauer teaching award. 

I am the author of the award-winning book - Precarious Protections: Unaccompanied Minors Seeking Asylum in the US (University of California Press, 2023)- an ethnography of the experiences of Central American unaccompanied minors and their immigration attorneys as they pursue applications for refugee status in the US asylum process. The book is based on research that I conducted over the course of six years, including extensive ethnographic fieldwork in non-profits in Los Angeles that help children apply for immigration relief and over 120 interviews with unaccompanied children, their attorneys, and other key actors.

My current research includes two major studies. First, with the support of the ABF and in collaboration with Tatiana Padilla (Cornell), we are studying access to legal representation and determinants of case outcomes for unaccompanied minors in the U.S. immigration court using a large administrative dataset. Second, with funding from the Russell Sage Foundation and with a team of research assistants, I am conducting an ethnographic study on the reception of Venezuelan asylum-seekers in Chicago. 

I received my Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 2020, and I was a postdoctoral fellow at Cornell from 2020 to 2022. Before pursuing an academic career, I worked for non-profits and was a policy analyst for the Italian National Contact Point of the European Migration Network.

For up-to-date information about my research, collaborations, and publications, please visit: https://www.gallichiara.com/

Recent publications 

Galli, Chiara. 2026. “To Exclude or Protect: Unaccompanied Minors and the Failures of Immigration Law.” Annual Review of Law and Social Science 22. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-lawsocsci-042224-100208

Galli, C., & Padilla, T. 2026. “New Data on Unaccompanied Minors in US Immigration Court (2009–2023)." International Migration Review, 60(3), 1812-1842. https://doi.org/10.1177/01979183251316528

Galli, Chiara and Tatiana Padilla. 2026. “The Justice Gap for Unaccompanied Children in US Immigration Court: Rurality, Resources, and Client Characteristics as Determinants of Access to Counsel.” Law & Social Inquiry. Online first: https://doi.org/10.1017/lsi.2026.10145

Galli, Chiara and Tatiana Padilla. 2025. “Deporting Children: Case Outcomes for Unaccompanied Minors Facing Removal Proceedings in US Immigration Court.” Social Forces soag023. Online first: https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/soag023

Galli, Chiara and Filiz Garip. 2024. “Bringing children to the center of migration theory.” International Migration Review 58 (4): 1876-1912. https://doi.org/10.1177/0197918324126812