Sandra Barcenas Fuerte

Sandra studies how immigration systems construct and enforce hierarchies of citizenship, specifically examining how legal, political, and social institutions assign varying levels of belonging and legitimacy to migrant communities. Her research focuses on the U.S.-Mexico border, the role of emerging technologies and AI in border enforcement, migration management, and state power. She scrutinizes how governments and institutions deploy these tools, explores the ethical implications of their use, and analyzes how they construct or deconstruct existing inequalities in migration governance. Currently, Sandra assists in the wage-theft project, supervised by Adrienne, and the refugee & AI project, led by Meron, which overlaps with her research. She graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, with a double major in Political Science and Legal Studies, focusing on Empirical Theory and Quantitative Methods, and Law and Culture.