The New Immigrant Survey(NIS)

The New Immigrant Survey is a plan for nationally representative, longitudinal studies of immigrants and their children that promises to provide the kinds of data that will help answer many of the important questions about immigration and concomitantly shed light on basic aspects of human development.

The NIS Pilot (NIS-P)

The pilot survey (NIS-P) is a panel survey of a nationally representative sample of new legal immigrants to the United States based on probability samples of administrative records of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). The baseline interviews were started in October of 1996 and completed in February 1998. Baseline interviews were ultimately conducted with 1,127 adult immigrants.

The NIS First Full Cohort (NIS-2003)

The first full cohort (NIS-2003) sampled immigrants in the period May-November 2003. The baseline round was in the field from June 2003 to June 2004. A follow-up round with the same respondents is planned for early 2007. Sample size for the Adult Sample is 8,573 and 810 for the Child Sample.

Public Use Data

The NIS-P public use data are available for baseline, six month and twelve month interviews with adult immigrants (those age 18 or over at admission to permanent residence). The completion rate for the baseline interview was 62 percent. Much higher completion rates were achieved on the follow-up surveys: 92 percent in the six-month follow-up and 95 percent of cases in the 12-month follow-up.

The baseline round of the first full cohort data (NIS-2003) are now available.

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