The Impact of Undocumented Status and Skin Tone on Immigrant Mobility
- Human Rights Research Center
- 2 hours ago
- 13 min read
Author: Yair Guijosa-Torres
June 17, 2025
Introduction
Immigrant workers are an integral part of the economic force in the United States yet, the new Trump administration is deporting immigrants, forcing states to look into new means of labor. In Florida specifically, Richard Luscombe, a reporter from The Guardian in Miami, argues that Governor Ron DeSantis believes in replacing immigrant workers with children. “The state’s schoolchildren, who, as young as 14, could soon be allowed to work overnight shifts without a break–even on school nights,” in a new bill that would “allow employers to require 16 and 17 year olds to work for more than six days in a row” (Luscombe, 2025). The anti-immigrant campaign of the Trump administration has led to a new issue, a decline in the immigrant workforce. Instead of issuing new bills that would protect and help immigrants, especially undocumented migrants, to fulfill these roles safely, states, like Florida, risk labor exploitation by allowing children to make up for the immigrant workforce deficit.
While immigrants in the United States are being deported, causing a decline in the immigrant workforce, undocumented immigrants of color are also facing challenges of job mobility given Trump’s anti-immigrant sentiments and systemic racism in the United States. Sociologists such as JooHee Han and Matthew Hall study the impact of race, employment, and immigration status on job mobility within rich nations, such as Norway and the United States. Prior studies of immigrant mobility have examined the labor market experiences of undocumented immigrants and immigrants of color separately, while current research lacks understanding of how these identities interact to shape employment outcomes. By synthesizing empirical research across both domains, this article contributes to a more nuanced understanding of how intersecting marginalized identities affect one’s job mobility. This research can help inform policymakers, scholars, and community organizers by offering insights into the challenges faced by this population. Understanding these barriers is an important step toward developing equitable structural shifts that acknowledge the realities of race and legal status in the labor market. Through a thematic analysis of the empirical work on immigrant mobility, this literature review aims to better understand how the intersection of skin tone and legal status affects an individual’s ability to achieve employment opportunities in the United States.
Research on Skin Tone and Immigrant Mobility
Prior scholarship on immigrant mobility has suggested that skin tone plays an important role in an immigrant’s integration process in the United States. Though the literature domain supports this claim, there is a lack of empirical research that agrees with this argument. In Does Skin Tone Matter? Immigrant Mobility in the U.S. Labor Market, Han, a sociologist that studies the labor market in wealthy countries, argues that a lack of “representative survey data to measure immigrants’ skin tone in addition to race” has prevented empirical studies in this field of research (Han, 2020, p. 706). Of the existing empirical research, scholars have shown a negative relationship between darker skin tone and labor market outcomes. However, as Han emphasizes, these studies typically examine “the effect of skin tone at only one time point” instead of the long-term periods of immigrant integration (Han, 2020, p. 706). Research on immigrant “assimilation” has also shown that the lack of skill transferability negatively impacts an immigrant’s ability to attain social mobility, and “as they accumulate destination country-specific human/social capital,” they experience upward mobility, “resulting in U-shape labor market trajectories” (Han, 2020, p. 706). The main findings of prior research reveal a need to consider both longitudinal data and skin tone as a critical factor in understanding immigrant mobility over time.
Prior research also touches on sociological theory, such as colorism, to explain this phenomenon of downward immigrant mobility. Han explains that social stratification based on skin tone stems from colorism, the idea that lighter skin tones hold more privilege in society compared to darker skin tones which is an idea rooted in racism (Han, 2020, p. 707). A key component of colorism is the role of ethnoracial self-identity and ethnoracial classification. Han explains that “light-skinned Hispanic high school students are often perceived as White European descendants despite their self-identity as Latinxs” (Han, 2020, p. 708). In other words, how others perceive an individual’s skin tone, such as “Latinxs” with light skin, constitutes their ethnoracial classification, whereas how one identifies ethnically reflects their ethnoracial self-identity. Han refers to this interaction as the multidimensionality of race: where identity is negotiated across individual, institutional, and cultural levels (Han, 2020, p. 707). This complexity underscores how perceived and self-identified racial indicators both shape and complicate the social experiences of immigrants of color.
Another critical concept Han engages with is assimilation theory and segmented assimilation theory. Both suggest that immigrants will acculturate over time in the United States. Han emphasizes that a key component of assimilation theory is that “the types of capital (i.e., human and cultural capital) immigrants bring with them are stronger predictors of immigrants’ assimilation than are skin tone or race” (Han, 2020, p. 709). While this theory acknowledges that darker skin tones can be a barrier, it prioritizes capital, such as social networks and financial stability, in shaping an immigrant's experience of attaining social mobility. In contrast, segmented assimilation theorists argue that race is the most critical determinant in shaping the immigrant acculturation experience. Han concludes that both theories agree on one point to some degree, dark skin tone is a barrier to social mobility for immigrants because it “is associated with Black Americans, who are often stuck at the bottom of the racial hierarchy in the United States” (Han, 2020, p. 709). These theories together demonstrate the persistent and negatively impactful racial hierarchy that limits immigrants with darker skin tones from achieving social and economic mobility.
In his empirical analysis, Han finds that immigrants with darker skin tones experience lower occupational mobility compared to those with lighter skin tones. Immigrants of color tend to hold lower-status jobs across all three periods of the immigration process. Notably, “the dark skin tone penalty is stronger at T2 [first job after immigration in the U.S.] and T3 [current job], relative to before immigration” (Han, 2020, p. 715). Although assimilation scholars predict a U-shaped pattern, Han’s research presents a more complex image. His findings suggest that while all immigrants may experience upward mobility between stages two and three, those with lighter skin tones see significantly higher employment outcomes than immigrants with darker skin. In terms of racial self-identification, “Hispanic” and Asian immigrants experience greater upward mobility than Black immigrants, with Asians even surpassing White immigrants (Han, 2020, p. 718). This analysis highlights how the intersection of race and skin tone creates a nuanced hierarchy that shapes employment opportunities differently for immigrants with different skin tones. His findings suggest that immigrants of color in the United States face limited upward mobility due to racial discrimination.
In How Race and Unemployment Shape Labor Market Opportunities: Additive, Amplified, or Muted Effects? David Pedulla’s research further supports Han’s findings that racism limits job mobility for people (immigrants) of color in the United States. In his article, Pedulla, a sociologist from Harvard, examines how race and employment history intersect to influence job callback rates across various occupational sectors. He finds that “all African American workers—regardless of their employment trajectory—receive[d] lower callback rates than white workers with seamless employment trajectories” (Pedulla, 2018, p. 1488). This pattern reveals the long-term impact of racial hierarchy in the U.S. labor market, where Black workers face discrimination even when their qualifications or employment histories match or exceed those of white people. Pedulla’s findings support Han’s argument that immigrants with darker skin tones, particularly those perceived as Black, experience disadvantages in employment. Their work highlights how racism continues to perpetuate labor market inequality.
Research on Legal Status and Immigrant Mobility
Prior research in this field of study argues that immigrants encounter high job mobility. For some scholars, undocumented immigrant workers are highly responsive to local economic shifts, moving from areas of low job opportunity to places where they are more likely to find a job. In Job Mobility among Unauthorized Immigrant Workers, Matthew Hall, a sociologist of public policy, and his colleagues write that “recent work shows that immigrants to the United States are highly responsive to local economic conditions, leaving areas with deteriorating job opportunities for those where work is more plentiful” (Hall, Greenman, & Yi, 2019, p. 1000). Hall and his colleagues emphasize that job mobility among immigrant workers is high, especially among undocumented immigrants, but the research on whether or not the transition and search for a new job have an impact on social mobility remains undiscovered.
In their empirical analysis, Hall and his colleagues argue that legal status prevents immigrant workers' opportunities for upward social mobility. They question how legal status impacts social mobility for immigrant workers, specifically people from Mexico and Central America. In their statistical analysis, they find a percentage difference between “unauthorized” and “authorized” workers attaining occupational upgrades when they change employer and employment status. Hall and his collaborators write that, “while about 47 percent of authorized migrants and native workers who embark on diagonal moves experience upgrades to their occupational position, just 40 percent of unauthorized workers do” (Hall, Greenman, & Yi, 2019, p. 1014). The researchers note that undocumented immigrant workers are less likely to change occupations than documented immigrant workers. When controlling the age and education variables, “their pathways of mobility are largely characterized by a process of occupational churning” (Hall, Greenman, & Yi, 2019, p. 1021). Hall and his colleagues emphasize that undocumented immigrant workers attain fewer occupational upgrades than documented immigrant workers and are less likely to change employment. Those who do transition into a new job remain in the same occupational status, a phenomenon known as “occupational churning." When taking into account young age and lower education, the researchers uncover that undocumented immigrant workers change jobs less, which does not support prior research that immigrants face high job mobility.
Analysis of Skin Tone and Legal Status on Immigrant Mobility
The previous sections have demonstrated that both skin tone and legal status are critical factors in shaping immigrant mobility in the United States. Han’s research underscores how darker skin tones are associated with limited occupational advancement, a consequence of colorism via systemic racism. Meanwhile, Hall and his colleagues showcase that legal status further constrains job mobility because undocumented workers are less likely to experience occupational upgrades when changing jobs. The scholars emphasize that immigrants often face “occupational churning,” repeated lateral moves within the same job tier, without meaningful progress toward social mobility. These studies illustrate that undocumented immigrants of color experience compounded disadvantages in the labor market, though the extent of this negative impact remains uncertain. The synthesis of the findings by Han, Pedulla, and Hall suggests that immigrant job mobility is shaped by structural inequalities ingrained in racism and immigration policy. Undocumented immigrants of color face systemic barriers to employment mobility that cannot be overcome through individual assimilation or capital acquisition alone, the research demonstrates a need for structural change.
Recent executive orders by the Trump administration have intensified these systemic barriers. One of these policy changes from the White House emphasizes denying employment authorization to all “unauthorized aliens,” reinforcing the structural obstacles for undocumented immigrants in the labor force (The White House 2025). This policy ignores the important impact undocumented immigrants have on the U.S. economy. For undocumented immigrants of color who are already facing discrimination based on their perceived race, they also now encounter harsher legal exclusion from society. This double negative impact reinforces downward mobility and forces many into exploitative labor markets where worker protections are limited. Instead of addressing immigration through structural changes that help individuals integrate into society, the Trump administration has institutionalized the marginalization of undocumented immigrants of color.
Not only are the executive orders creating legal exclusion, but by using “invasion” to describe the rise of immigrants in the United States, the Trump administration reflects a cultural shift that risks employment opportunities for undocumented immigrants of color due to increased xenophobia. In Donald Trump’s Immigration Executive Orders: Tracking the Most Impactful Changes, writers Mica Rosenberg and Perla Trevizo explain that “on Jan. 23, the acting homeland security secretary used the invocation of an ‘invasion’ to call on states and local governments to help the federal government with immigration enforcement” (Rosenberg and Trevizo 2025). The use of the word “invasion” to describe the rising immigrant presence in the United States fosters a sense of fear that negatively impacts undocumented immigrants of color. This narrative not only fuels anti-immigrant sentiment but also legitimizes systemic racism and anti-immigrant policies. These effects might constrain job mobility for undocumented immigrants of color by discouraging and instilling fear in immigrants from seeking employment opportunities and/or using social services that are sometimes already limited to documented immigrants only. Undocumented immigrants of color are not only structurally excluded from the workforce but are also socially excluded from participating in the economy, reinforcing marginalization and downward mobility.
Community-Centered Approach Toward an Integrated Immigrant Society
Scholars from the Opportunity Insights Team argue that community hubs can serve as engines of upward mobility across generations. In Changing Opportunity: How Changes in Children’s Social Environments Have Increased Class Gaps and Reduced Racial Gaps in Economic Mobility, the Opportunity Insights Team claims that local community structures shape positive social mobility outcomes. They write that “changing opportunity is feasible in short time frames,” and that “community-level changes in one generation propagate to the next and can thereby generate rapid changes in economic mobility” (Opportunity Insights Team, 2024, p. 6). Their research emphasizes the potential of neighborhood-level initiatives to create real and long-term shifts in economic outcomes. This research suggests that engaging and providing resources for immigrant communities in localized efforts, such as mentorship programs, English as a Second Language (ESL) courses, and investments in walkable infrastructure, can be powerful tools in the absence of immediate policy reform in the United States. Systemic immigration policy changes are important for long-term equity. However, these community-based interventions can serve as immediate support systems. They can help by expanding access to opportunity and fostering social mobility for immigrant populations in the meantime, especially new and undocumented immigrants.
Conclusion
The intersection of undocumented status and racial identity reveals a structural system of inequality that limits immigrant job mobility in wealthy nations, such as the United States. The work of Han, Hall, and Pedulla demonstrates that undocumented immigrants of color experience limited occupational advancement due to the combined effects of systemic racism and legal exclusion. Skin tone is a key factor in determining employment outcomes, and undocumented status prevents access to job transitions and occupational upgrades. The main findings show that job mobility for undocumented immigrants of color is shaped by structural forces that may be intensified at the intersection of race and legal status. These barriers, reinforced by anti-immigrant political rhetoric and exclusionary legal policies, require systemic change to ensure equitable labor outcomes for all.
Despite the structural challenges facing undocumented immigrants of color, there remains hope for a more equitable future. As shown by the Opportunity Insights Team, community-level interventions can produce real improvements in upward social mobility. Programs that support education, skill development, and social inclusion for immigrant families, especially at the local level, can foster environments where the children of immigrants have the opportunity to grow economically. Han’s research suggests that with access to higher education and meritocratic jobs, second-generation immigrants can experience more equitable labor outcomes than their parents. In Wage Disparities across Immigrant Generations: Education, Segregation, or Unequal Pay? Han notes that for immigrant workers with higher education, particularly those employed in professional roles or the public sector, job allocation appears to be “the most meritocratic” (Han & Hermansen, 2024, p. 621). Han suggests that when children of immigrants possess advanced university degrees, their labor market outcomes align more closely with native workers. This finding emphasizes the importance and impact of welfare policies for second-generation immigrant workers in the labor market. Han’s work suggests that while undocumented immigrants face structural barriers, the second generation may benefit from more equitable opportunities. This progression offers a hopeful perspective on the potential for integration and upward mobility across generations for immigrants in wealthy countries.
Glossary
Acculturation: The process of assimilating into a popular/dominant culture.
Assimilation Theory: A sociological theory that suggests immigrants gradually adopt the cultural norms and values of their host society.
Colorism: A form of discrimination based on skin tone, where lighter skin is often valued more than darker skin, leading to unequal treatment.
Empirical Research: Research based on observed and measured phenomena. It involves collecting data through direct or indirect observation, experience, or experimentation.
Ethnoracial Classification: The process of categorizing individuals based on their perceived race and ethnicity which can influence their social identity and treatment in society.
Ethnoracial Self-identity: The process of how individuals decided to self-identify racially in relation to their ethnicity.
Human Capital: The skills, knowledge, and education that individuals achieve which can impact their ability to succeed in the labor market.
Immigrant Assimilation: The process by which immigrants adopt the customs, values, and/or behaviors of their host country.
Immigrant Mobility: The movement of immigrants within the labor market which can involve changes (positive, negative, or constant) in employment status, occupation, and social class over time.
Intersectionality: A concept that explores how various forms of social groups, such as race, gender, class, and immigration status, intersect and overlap to affect individuals' experiences.
Job/Occupational Mobility: The ability or act of moving between different jobs or occupations within the labor market.
Labor Exploitation: The unfair treatment or abuse of workers, especially those in vulnerable positions, such as low wages, long hours, or unsafe working conditions.
Labor Market: Where workers seek employment and employers seek workers.
Longitudinal Data: A form of research that involves tracking a sample (small units of measurement or people) over a period of time.
Marginalized Identities: Marginalized people experience social, economic, and/or political exclusion and are typically denied equal access to resources or opportunities.
Meritocratic Jobs: Work that is based on merit that is often high-paying and requires a high degree of skill/performance.
Multidimensionality of Race: The idea that there are different factors, such as skin tone, racial self-identity, and/or phenotype, that contribute to one’s perception of race.
Occupational Churning: The repeated movement of workers within the same job level or occupation without making significant upward progress.
Racial Hierarchy: A social system that ranks different racial groups in terms of privilege and status, placing white individuals at the top and people of color at a disadvantage.
Repatriation: The process of returning a person to their country of origin.
Segmented Assimilation Theory: A theory that argues that not all immigrants will assimilate in the same way; instead, some may face barriers based on race or class, leading to segmented or unequal outcomes.
Skill Transferability: Abilities of an individual that allows them to excel in more than one job (e.g. time management, leadership, and language).
Social Capital: The networks, relationships, and connections that individuals can draw upon to achieve social and economic benefits.
Social Mobility: The ability of individuals to move up or down in the social ladder, influenced by several factors such as income, education, and employment opportunities.
Structural Inequality: The systematic disadvantage faced by certain groups ingrained in the systems and institutions of society.
Systemic Racism: A form of racism that stems from policies, practices, and structures of society that affect various aspects of life.
Thematic Literature Review: A type of literature review that organizes and synthesizes previous research based on key themes, concepts, or topics.
U-shape Labor Market: Immigrants face a “U-shape Labor Market” trajectory before and after moving, meaning that there is a three stage process: 1) job before migrating to the host country, 2) first job after migrating, and 3) present job. The assumption is that social mobility of an individual decreases from stage 1 to stage 2, then increases from stage 2 to stage 3, following a U-shape pattern on a graph.
Undocumented Immigrants: Individuals who enter a country without legal documentation.
Upward Mobility: The ability of individuals to improve their social and economic status over time.
Wage Disparities: Differences in pay between different groups of workers.
Xenophobia: Negative attitudes, such as hatred or fear, towards people that are perceived as foreign.
Sources
Han, JooHee. “Does Skin Tone Matter? Immigrant Mobility in the U.S. Labor Market.” Demography, vol. 57, no. 2, pp. 705–26, (2020).
Han, J., & Hermansen, A. S. “Wage Disparities across Immigrant Generations: Education, Segregation, or Unequal Pay?” ILR Review, 77(4), 598-625, (2024).
Hall, Matthew, Emily Greenman, Youngmin Yi, “Job Mobility among Unauthorized Immigrant Workers,” Social Forces, Volume 97, Issue 3, Pages 999–1028, (2019).
Luscombe, Richard. “Alarm as Florida Republicans Move to Fill Deported Workers’ Jobs With Children: ‘It’s Insane, Right?’” The Guardian, 29 Mar. 2025.
Opportunity Insights Team. "Changing Opportunity: How Changes in Children’s Social Environments Have Increased Class Gaps and Reduced Racial Gaps in Economic Mobility." Opportunity Insights, (2024).
Pedulla, David S. “How Race and Unemployment Shape Labor Market Opportunities: Additive, Amplified, or Muted Effects?” Social Forces, vol. 96, no. 4, pp. 1477–506, (2018).
Rosenberg, Mica and Perla Trevizo. “Donald Trump’s Immigration Executive Orders: Tracking the Most Impactful Changes.” ProPublica, 7 Feb. 2025.
The White House. “Protecting the American People Against Invasion.” The White House, 21 Jan. 2025