Els de Graauw

Els de Graauw (she/her) is Professor of Political Science, Public Policy, and International Migration Studies at Baruch College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York (CUNY). She is also affiliated with the Department of Black and Latino Studies at Baruch College and directs the MA Program in International Migration Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center.

Her research examines immigration, civil society organizations, urban politics, government bureaucracies, and public policy, with a particular focus on how governmental and nongovernmental organizations develop the institutional capacity to advance immigrant integration, rights, and political representation. Her work draws extensively on qualitative research methods and bridges scholarship on immigration, public administration, and urban governance.

Her current research focuses on the role of government institutions and bureaucracies in shaping immigrant inclusion in the United States. She is working on her fifth book, Governing Belonging: How Cities and States Integrate Immigrants, which examines the emergence, institutionalization, and impact of immigrant affairs offices in U.S. cities and states. With Shannon Gleeson (Cornell University), she is conducting a National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded study of the implementation of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program in the San Francisco Bay Area, Greater Houston, and the New York City metropolitan area.

Her award-winning book, Making Immigrant Rights Real: Nonprofits and the Politics of Integration in San Francisco (Cornell University Press, 2016), examines how nonprofit organizations advance immigrant integration through advocacy for language access, labor rights, and municipal identification cards. She is also co-author of Advancing Immigrant Rights in Houston (Temple University Press, 2024) and co-editor of Migrants, Minorities, and the Media: Information, Representations, and Participation in the Public Sphere (Routledge, 2017) and Handbook on Migration and Cities (Edward Elgar, 2027).

Her research has appeared in leading journals across political science, sociology, migration studies, and urban studies, including the American Journal of Sociology, Annual Review of Political Science, Politics & Society, Social Problems, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Migration Studies, Antipode, Urban Geography, Law & Policy, and Territory, Politics, Governance, as well as numerous edited volumes. She has also authored policy reports and contributed to public-facing outlets, including the Chronicle of Philanthropy. Beyond academia, she regularly gives talks and collaborates with community organizations and local governments in the United States and Europe to advance immigrant integration through research, policy dialogue, and local action.

Her research has received support from the National Science Foundation, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research, the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study, the Professional Staff Congress at CUNY, and several private foundations. She has also received research fellowships and institutional support from Harvard University, Cornell University, the University of Amsterdam, UC Berkeley, and the CUNY Graduate Center.

Els earned her PhD in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley. She has held research appointments at Harvard University, Cornell University, the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study, the University of Copenhagen, and the European University Institute. In 2012, she co-founded the Section on Migration and Citizenship of the American Political Science Association, serving as its elected co-president and secretary from 2012 to 2016. She previously served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (2014–2024) and Urban Affairs Review (2016–2023) and currently serves on the International Advisory Council of Metropolis International.

She regularly teaches courses on immigration and social movements and welcomes inquiries from students interested in honors thesis projects in Political Science or Public Affairs.

For a complete list of publications and additional information, visit her personal website. You can also follow her on Bluesky.