Higher education is influenced by ongoing expansion and transformation due to increasingly diverse students, including immigrant students. Former studies of immigrant women students in higher education tend to focus on constraints for this student group. However, this integrative literature review focuses on both constraints, facilitators and health, with the ambition to contribute with a more multifaceted image of these students. The aim is to provide an overview of constraints, facilitators and health for immigrant women students in higher education and to provide a synthesis of previous research. The study applies a developmental ecological perspective on students. The final material, comprising 13 articles published in peer-reviewed journals, was analysed by thematic analysis. Despite the variety of articles concerning countries of origin and of settlement, common patterns were found. The results showed that for immigrant women in higher education, family constitutes a constraint while also acting as a facilitator and influencing health. As such, the family asserted itself as both an enabler and an aggravator, which demonstrated the complexity of immigrant women’s situation in higher education. © The Author(s) 2025