His ethnographic and sociolegal research focused on the experiences of Mexican migrants in the United States, especially the historical and ongoing production of the conditions of their "illegality."
De Genova is the author of Working the Boundaries: Race, Space, and "Illegality" in Mexican Chicago (Duke University Press, 2005); co-author of Latino Crossings: Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and the Politics of Race and Citizenship (with Ana Y. Ramos-Zayas; Routledge, 2003); editor of Racial Transformations: Latinos and Asians Remaking the United States (Duke University Press, 2006); co-editor of The Deportation Regime: Sovereignty, Space, and the Freedom of Movement (with Nathalie Peutz; Duke University Press, 2010); editor of The Borders of "Europe": Autonomy of Migration, Tactics of Bordering (Duke University Press, 2017); co-editor of Roma Migrants in the European Union: Un/Free Mobility (with Can Yildiz; Routledge, 2019); co-editor of Europa / Crisis: Nuevas Palabras Claves en “la Crisis” en y de “Europa” (with Martina Tazzioli; Madrid: La Catarata, 2021).
"[4] De Genova said that he hoped the U.S. would experience "a million Mogadishus," a reference to the Battle of Mogadishu, an incident in which 18 American soldiers were killed in 1993, which brought about the end of the U.S. involvement in Somalia.
[16] In a letter to the Columbia Spectator, published a few days after the teach-in, De Genova wrote that "imperialism and white supremacy have been constitutive of U.S. nation-state formation and U.S. nationalism" and called for "repudiating all forms of U.S. patriotism" and urged "the defeat of the U.S. war machine."
[18] As recently as 2021 his personal website stated he was writing a memoir on free speech during wartime in which he would examine the context in which he made his statements regarding the war as well as the pressure he came under in their aftermath.