Globally mobile students such as international students, refugees/asylee students, and undocumented students are viewed as a talented immigrant labor pool that can strengthen the U.S. workforce and economy. However, the reality is that they must overcome perpetual challenges in their daily lives as they navigate a strict immigration system that is intertwined with a long history of imposing barriers to those migrating to the United States, causing unequal access to the labor market and underemployment. In order to move scholarship forward and situate students’ experiences, a three-pronged conceptual lens is offered to frame the theoretical and empirical exploration associated with the disproportionality and debility of students’ access to the labor market, due to an outdated federal immigration system. This framework can provide the condition by which mobile students have the ability to exercise a sense of agency, while undertaking U.S. higher education and working toward upward socioeconomic mobility. It also touches upon the three major sections highlighting the context of international students, refugees/asylees, and undocumented student populations in higher education and underscores the need for institutions of higher education to do more to foster the success of these globally mobile students and the growing impetus for immigration policy reform as it relates to higher education and post-graduation employment.