Immigration may affect the likelihood that US natives major in science or engineering. Foreign-born students may crowd US natives out of science or engineering, or they may have positive spillovers on US natives that attract or retain them in those fields. This study uses data on college majors from the 2009–11 American Community Surveys to examine the effect of the immigrant share in US natives’ age cohort while they are in high school or in college. We find some evidence that immigration adversely affects whether US-born women who graduated from college majored in a science or engineering field.

The United States currently provides Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to more than 300,000 immigrants. TPS is typically granted if dangerous conditions prevail in migrants' home countries. Individuals with TPS are allowed to stay and work in the United States temporarily. Little is known about how TPS affects beneficiaries, most of whom are unauthorized prior to receiving TPS. Our results suggest that TPS eligibility leads to higher employment rates among women and higher earnings among men. The results have implications for recent programs that allow millions of unauthorized immigrants to receive temporary permission to remain and work in the United States.