Tom K. Wong is an associate professor of political science at the University of California, San Diego. He is also the founding director of the U.S. Immigration Policy Center (USIPC). He served as an advisor to the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders under the Obama administration, and was appointed to serve on the State of California 2020 Census Complete Count Committee. He is also co-director of the Human Rights and Migration program.

Wong’s research focuses on the politics of immigration, citizenship and migrant “illegality.” His first book, Rights, Deportation, and Detention in the Age of Immigration Control, analyzes the immigration control policies of 25 Western democracies (2015). His second book, The Politics of Immigration: Partisanship, Demographic Change, and American National Identity (2017), is a comprehensive analysis of the contemporary politics of immigration in the United States/

Wong founded the Dream Project, “a non-profit oral history project led by current and former undocumented youths and allies.” 

Expertise: Comparative politics, immigration, immigration politics and policy, human rights, citizenship

Location: San Diego, Calif.

Phone: (951) 907-9989

Email: tomkwong@ucsd.edu

Heard on KPCC: Take Two: Predicting how Congress will vote on immigration reform