This interdisciplinary research-based article examines how migrant women in the United States transition from economic integration to forms of institutional contribution aligned with national interest domains. Moving beyond employment-centered integration metrics, the study introduces the concept of professional legibility as the key mechanism through which migrant women’s skills, labor, and expertise become intelligible, recognizable, and valuable within U.S. institutional systems. Drawing on migration studies, labor sociology, public value theory, and research-based journalism, the article argues that institutional recognition—rather than human capital availability—constitutes the primary bottleneck to effective integration. It conceptualizes national interest as an operational, evidence-based construct encompassing economic resilience, public welfare efficiency, social cohesion, and information integrity, and demonstrates how migrant women’s professional activities contribute to each of these domains prior to full formal recognition. The study advances an Institutional Legibility Pathway (ILP) model tracing the progression from capacity and adaptation to micro-professionalization, partial recognition, and public-value contribution. Through qualitative, process-oriented empirical analysis of U.S.-based professional pathways, the article shows that migrant women often generate measurable public value—through community services, education, care work, journalism, and information mediation—well before institutions formally validate their work. The findings highlight micro-professionalization (documented standards, protocols, portfolios, ethical guidelines, and continuing education) as the pivotal bridge between adaptation and recognition, particularly in gendered sectors shaped by care responsibilities and fragmented credentialing regimes. The article further demonstrates that media framing functions as a secondary recognition system, accelerating or delaying institutional validation depending on whether migrant women’s work is represented as survival activity or as contribution. By reframing migrant women’s professional activity as a structural asset rather than a transitional anomaly, the article offers policy-relevant insights for designing transitional recognition frameworks, modular credentialing systems, and media–policy coordination mechanisms that align integration outcomes with U.S. national interest objectives. The version deposited in Zenodo is presented as a peer-reviewed interdisciplinary article intended to support open academic access, citation, and further research at the intersection of migration studies, gendered labor integration, journalism, and public interest analysis. The content and analytical structure correspond to the author’s original scholarly contribution and have not been substantively modified.
Khrystyna Nedeva (Fri,) studied this question.