The New Immigrant Survey Round 1 (NIS-2003-1), United States, 2003-2004 [Public and Restricted-Use Version 1] (ICPSR 38031)
Version Date: Aug 25, 2025 View help for published
Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s)
Guillermina Jasso, New York University;
Douglas Massey, Princeton University. Office of Population Research;
Mark Rosenzweig, Yale University;
James Smith, RAND Corporation
Series:
https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR38031.v3
Version V3 (see more versions)
Alternate Title View help for Alternate Title
Summary View help for Summary
The New Immigrant Survey (NIS) was a nationally representative, longitudinal study of new legal immigrants to the United States and their children. The sampling frame was based on the electronic administrative records compiled for new legal permanent residents (LPRs) by the U.S. government (via, formerly, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and now its successor agencies, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and the Office of Immigration Statistics (OIS)). The sample was drawn from new legal immigrants during May through November of 2003. The geographic sampling design took advantage of the natural clustering of immigrants. It included all top 85 Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) and all top 38 counties, plus a random sample of MSAs and counties. The baseline survey was conducted from June 2003 to June 2004 and yielded data on:
- 8,573 Adult Sample respondents,
- 810 sponsor-parents of the Sampled Child,
- 4,915 spouses,
- and 1,072 children aged 8-12.
Interviews were conducted in the respondents' language of choice. The Round 1 questionnaire items that were used in social-demographic-migration surveys around the world as well as the major U.S. longitudinal surveys were reviewed in order to achieve comparability. The NIS content includes the following information: demographic, health and insurance, migration history, living conditions, transfers, employment history, income, assets, social networks, religion, housing environment, and child assessment tests.
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Funding View help for Funding
Subject Terms View help for Subject Terms
Geographic Coverage View help for Geographic Coverage
Smallest Geographic Unit View help for Smallest Geographic Unit
State
Restrictions View help for Restrictions
These data may not be used for any purpose other than statistical reporting and analysis. Use of these data to learn the identity of any person or establishment is strictly prohibited. To protect respondent privacy, this data collection is restricted from general dissemination. To obtain this file, researchers must agree to the terms and conditions of a Restricted Data Use Agreement in accordance with existing ICPSR servicing policies.
Distributor(s) View help for Distributor(s)
Time Period(s) View help for Time Period(s)
Date of Collection View help for Date of Collection
Data Collection Notes View help for Data Collection Notes
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Version 1 of The New Immigrant Survey Round 1 study contains variables pertaining to respondents' demographics. The Version 2 study contains information pertaining to the respondents' immigration details and geographic identifiers.
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Datasets in this study that contain "(ppp)" in their name indicate that they have purchasing power parities calculated. These datasets were created by the NIS team and include variables from Sections B, C, G, H, and I. See the associated questionnaires for additional information about the variables in these sections.
Study Purpose View help for Study Purpose
The purpose of The New Immigrant Survey (NIS) was to obtain a general overview of the population of legal immigrants to the United States. Aims of the study included assessing changes in immigrants' lifestyles, evaluating employment situations and societal assimilations, and examining the education of immigrants and their transition towards permanent citizenship.
Sample View help for Sample
The sampling frame consists of new-arrival immigrants - immigrants arriving in the United States with immigrant documents acquired abroad - and adjustee immigrants - immigrants who are already in the United States with a temporary nonimmigrant visa and adjust to lawful permanent residence. The Adult and Child Samples are defined in terms of immigration category and age. The Adult Sample covers all immigrants who are 18 years of age or older at admission to the Lawful Permanent Residence (LPR) program. The Child Sample covers immigrants with child-of-U.S.-citizen visas who are under 18 years of age and adopted orphans under five years of age.
Time Method View help for Time Method
Universe View help for Universe
Legal immigrants to the United States and their families.
Unit(s) of Observation View help for Unit(s) of Observation
Data Source View help for Data Source
Office of Immigration Statistics (OIS)
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)
Data Type(s) View help for Data Type(s)
Mode of Data Collection View help for Mode of Data Collection
Description of Variables View help for Description of Variables
- HEALTH MEASURES: self-reports of conditions, symptoms, functional status, hygienic behaviors (e.g., smoking and drinking history), use/source/costs of health care services, depression, pain;
- BACKGROUND: Childhood history and living conditions, education, migration history, marital history, military history, fertility history, language skills, employment history in the U.S. and in foreign countries, social networks, religion;
- FAMILY: rosters of all children; for each, demographic attributes, summary indicators of childhood and current health, education, language ability, current work status, migration. Parent and sibling information;
- TRANSFERS: financial assistance given/received to/from respondent from/to relatives, friends, employer;
- ECONOMIC: sources and amounts of income, including wages, pensions, and government subsidies; type, value of assets and debts;
- HOUSING ENVIRONMENT: type, ownership of consumer durables
Response Rates View help for Response Rates
The Round 1 Adult Sample response rate was 68.6 percent.
HideOriginal Release Date View help for Original Release Date
2022-11-08
Version History View help for Version History
2025-08-25 Two documentation files were added: handouts describing the Adult Sample and Child Sample data collection.
2024-11-21 The public-use data and documentation (DS1-DS66) were added to the collection. ICPSR README files for the public-use datasets were removed. Minor edits were also made to the metadata record.
2022-11-08 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:
- Created variable labels and/or value labels.
- Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.
Weight View help for Weight
The public-use data, excluding the (ppp) datasets, contain the weight variable NISWGTSAMP1. Please see the Sampling Weights documentation for additional information.
HideNotes
The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public. Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.
ICPSR usually offers files in multiple formats for researchers to be able to access data and documentation in formats that work well within their needs. If you have questions about the accessibility of materials distributed by ICPSR or require further assistance, please visit ICPSR’s Accessibility Center.
One or more files in this data collection have special restrictions. Restricted data files are not available for direct download from the website; click on the Restricted Data button to learn more.
This study was originally processed, archived, and disseminated by Data Sharing for Demographic Research (DSDR), a project funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD).