What share of unauthorized immigrants hold temporary protections (DACA, TPS, parole) in Minnesota, Texas, and Florida, and how does that affect labor-market participation?
Executive summary
The sources reviewed do not provide a direct, state-by-state breakdown of the share of unauthorized immigrants who specifically hold temporary protections such as DACA, TPS or parole for Minnesota, Texas, and Florida; however, national and state-level reporting establishes relevant context: a substantial portion of the broader unauthorized-or-temporarily-protected population holds work authorization, and unauthorized immigrants participate in the labor force at rates far above population averages, meaning that temporary protections that confer work authorization materially raise employment and hours worked where they are present [1] [2] [3].
1. What the published data actually measure and what they do not: the limits of available state breakdowns
Migration Policy Institute’s state profile methodology produces estimates of Minnesota’s unauthorized population and characteristics using ACS and SIPP imputations, but MPI’s public profile does not decompose the Minnesota unauthorized count into holders of DACA, TPS, or parole in the materials provided here, and no reviewed source supplies the exact share of unauthorized people with those specific statuses for Minnesota, Texas, or Florida [4].
2. National baselines and larger aggregates that matter for interpretation
Advocacy and research groups note that nearly 11 million people are either undocumented or temporarily protected nationally, a pooled category that includes TPS and various parole programs and that underlines how many people in this combined set hold work authorization or could seek it (FWD.US) [1]. Independent researchers and labor analysts further report that roughly three‑quarters of the unauthorized population were employed in 2022, which provides a baseline for how work authorization or lack thereof translates into labor-market engagement across jurisdictions [2].
3. State-level footprints where we can be confident: Texas and Florida vs. Minnesota
Pew and other demographic tabulations show Texas and Florida among the states with the largest shares of unauthorized immigrants in their workforces (Texas and Florida consistently appear near the top of state rankings for unauthorized shares of the workforce), while Minnesota has a much smaller unauthorized population in absolute terms and smaller share of the workforce than those sunbelt states, according to state tabulations cited by Pew and MPI for broader unauthorized-population distribution [5] [4]. The reviewed Minnesota-focused reports (MPI and a community study) emphasize a high labor-force participation rate among undocumented working-age immigrants in Minnesota — one study cites an assumed 90% participation rate for working-age unauthorized immigrants in Minnesota’s analysis — but these sources do not link that participation specifically to DACA/TPS/parole shares [6] [4].
4. How temporary protections influence participation where they exist
Economists and policy analysts make a clear causal connection: legal temporary protections that grant work authorization (for example, many holders of TPS, many parolees with work permits, and DACA recipients with Employment Authorization Documents) raise employment rates, job stability, and measured hours worked because beneficiaries can seek lawful employment and are less constrained by the clandestine labor market; Brookings and other macro studies emphasize that surges in arrivals and in work-permit applications translate into quicker ramps in labor-force participation among recent immigrants [3] [1]. The Dallas Fed’s use of parole and court data also signals that changes in parole and enforcement produce rapid geographic swings that influence local labor supply—implying that increases in parole-based work authorization can be concentrated and have noticeable local labor-market effects [7].
5. Bottom line and what remains uncertain
It is certain from the reviewed material that many in the combined “unauthorized or temporarily protected” category are employed at rates well above the general population and that legal temporary protections which include work authorization boost participation and economic integration [2] [3] [1]. It is not possible, using the supplied sources, to state the precise share of Minnesota’s, Texas’s, or Florida’s unauthorized populations that hold DACA, TPS, or parole specifically — that granular, status-by-status, state-level breakdown is not present in these documents [4] [1] [5]. Any policy assessment therefore must proceed with that gap in mind: local labor-market impacts depend both on the absolute number of protected individuals and on sectoral concentrations (e.g., agriculture, hospitality, caregiving) where such protections change employers’ hiring practices and workers’ stability [1] [2].