The principal investigator and colleagues propose a pilot study of a substantial sample size of foreign born that will eventually lead to a longitudinal analysis to answer policy questions in the field of immigration. The proposal calls for a prospective-retrospective survey based on the administrative immigration records of legal immigrants and non- immigrants. A questionnaire would be administered soon after immigration to obtain retrospective information on the new immigrants and their immediate and extended families. A second questionnaire would be administered with two years to track the mobility and adaptation of these respondents. Three or four years later, a second immigrant cohort sample would be drawn from administrative records to permit comparison with the first group. The first stage would be to design an implementation of a pilot survey to minimize the problems that might attend the larger project and to gain a better gauge of the costs of the full sample design. Given the success of the project, the principal investigator and colleagues will seek funding for a follow-up study and what will lead to the first genuine longitudinal research on immigrants ever undertaken.
