A socio-cultural anthropologist with a background in law enforcement, Gabriella Sanchez's research has focused on the study of irregular migration facilitation and crimes related to migration (migrant smuggling, human trafficking, torture, kidnapping, extortion, scams, forgery, fraud, corruption, enforced disappearances). She has a special interest in the recruitment and involvement of men, women and children as facilitators of smuggling and trafficking activities. Her work (carried out on the US-Mexico border, the Americas, North Africa, the Middle East and Europe) relies on a community-centered, participatory, human rights approach. Its goal is to reduce gaps between the experiences of people on the migration pathway and policy responses that target them.
She has hold academic posts at the University of Maryland's START, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Wellesley College, Monash University, The Catholic University of America, the University of Texas in El Paso, the Migration Policy Centre of the European University Institute, and the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS). A US Fulbright and US State Department Boren National Security Scholar, she is frequent commentator for US and European media, and has served as advisor and consultant to UNODC, IOM, ICRC, UNHCR and UNICEF among other international organizations.
Currently, she is research fellow on migration at Georgetown University's Collaborative on Global Children's Issues, examining issues impacting children on the migration pathway, the use of technology in migration enforcement, and ethical dimensions pertaining to migration research methodologies.
Her recent projects include an EU funded project on migrant smuggling in North Africa, on the impacts of EU counter-smuggling initiatives on women, children, young people, and tribal communities; a US State Department study on domestic servitude in Tunisia, and two projects on the mapping of migrant smuggling in the Americas and the Caribbean for IOM and UNODC. She is the co/author of multiple reports on the impact of COVID-19 on migrant smuggling along migration corridors into Europe and the Americas, and on the experiences of the families of missing migrants.