Highly educated and professionally trained immigrants are often blocked from resuming their careers in Massachusetts due to complex credentialing requirements, immigration hurdles and systemic inequities, according to a new study.
The report, “Tienen alas, pero no las pueden usar: Stories of Immigrants in Search of Work Credentials” was released Tuesday by The Boston Foundation and The Latino Equity Fund and draws on interviews with 20 immigrants enrolled in English classes across the state.
“The barriers are deeply embedded in our immigration and education systems, and in our labor market,” the report says. “In many ways, we are a nation that relies on immigrants but does little to welcome or nourish them. For Latinx and Caribbean communities in Massachusetts, bias likely adds an insidious extra layer – we are unnaturally accustomed to seeing brown and black faces in low-wage positions. Wage data affirms this.”
While U.S. immigration policy does allow about 140,000 skill-based immigrant visas per year, most immigrants arrive through family reunification or humanitarian channels, not employment. As a result, those with professional credentials must often qualify for licensure in the U.S. — a process that can take years.
The study finds that despite having attained experience in fields such as health care, international relations and engineering, participants described being funneled into low-wage jobs such as bartending, cleaning or driving for Uber. They described the U.S. licensing process as onerous, confusing and costly.
“An immigrant working two jobs due to high cost of living, and an immigrant experiencing illness without access to health care, cannot focus on career re-entry,” said Jonathan Vega-Martinez, a UMass researcher and one of the report’s authors, Tuesday morning.
Researchers identified key barriers: English language proficiency; immigration policy restrictions; lack of familiarity with the American job market; job fulfillment; family responsibilities; difficulty adjusting to a new country; and the complexity of re-credentialing systems. These challenges often intersect, researchers said, leading many immigrants to abandon efforts to re-enter their previous fields.
One of the largest barriers to career reentry for some respondents was their immigration status. The study uses the term “unauthorized immigrants,” to signal that many of them have documentation of some sort, either through a legal humanitarian status or overstaying their nonimmigrant visa.
“Regardless of their credential and their validity, unauthorized immigrants’ lack of work authorization made them ineligible for formal employment,” it says.
It adds that the “sheer complexity” of the U.S. immigration system is compounded with difficulties getting credentials to work. The report lands as the federal government is aggressively prosecuting undocumented immigrants and differences remain in Congress over immigration reforms.
Even for those with work authorizations, participants reported frequently lacking access to reliable information about necessary licenses and ways to obtain them. Others described the burden of balancing retraining or studying for exams with full-time work and family obligations.
“Right now I have two jobs, but this semester I started studying at Bunker Hill, and I’m doing it of my own accord,” said one respondent, who is a single mother. “I’ll tell you that it’s not easy having two jobs, both are full-time. The free time I have, I make the most of it and watch a documentary in English.”
The report makes a number of recommendations to help immigrants find work they’re qualified for, and fill holes in the state’s labor market.
They include creating a statewide clearinghouse for credentialing information, to standardize where a person could go to easily find information about licensing; foster a network of nonprofits to assist immigrants going through the credentialing process; and support the funding of professional English courses.
