Adam Goodman

Adam Goodman is an Associate Professor in the Department of Latin American and Latino Studies and Department of History at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC), within the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. His research focuses on migration history, immigration policy, Latino history, and border studies, with a particular emphasis on 20th–21st century US, Mexican, and Central American contexts. He holds a Ph.D. in History from the University of Pennsylvania and has held postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Southern California and visiting scholar positions at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.

Goodman’s award-winning book, The Deportation Machine: America’s Long History of Expelling Immigrants (2020), examines the systemic expulsion of noncitizens by the U.S. government. This work has received prestigious accolades including the PROSE Award and the Henry Adams Book Prize. His scholarship has appeared in venues like Journal of American History, Washington Post, and The Nation.

He is a co-founder of the #ImmigrationSyllabus project and serves on the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation’s History Advisory Committee. Goodman has engaged in policy advocacy through media interviews on outlets such as Univisión, BBC Radio 4, and CSPAN’s Book TV. His recent work explores Cold War-era exclusion policies, the human costs of deportation systems, and the intersection of immigration reform with social justice movements.