Data & freshness
How this site stays current, and exactly what every label means. We never present a projection as an official figure, and we never call a delayed dataset 'live'.
All statistics
Every number this site tracks, each labelled reported, projected, or estimated. Switch the view to compare the latest available period against the last complete fiscal year, or see the five-year trend.
U.S. unemployment rate (BLS)
Three labels on every number
The hardest problem with immigration data is that official figures lag, sometimes by months, sometimes by a year or more. Rather than guess and present it as fact, we label the origin of every value:
A real figure published by the source agency. Example: USCIS FY2024 H-1B approvals (399,395), CBP FY2024 nationwide encounters, the BLS unemployment rate we fetch live.
A projection computed from reported data (e.g. a full-year pace scaled from the elapsed share of the current fiscal year). Clearly not an official total.
Derived or apportioned from reported totals (e.g. a state or country share of a national figure, or a tracked-employer subset). An estimate, not an official figure.
And a freshness label for the reporting period
So a card reading “Border encounters · FY2026 YTD” with a Projected tag means: the year-to-date period, value projected from reported data, not an official YTD total. Toggle the dashboard to Last complete FY to see the most recent Reported figure.
How current each source is
Some feeds are genuinely live; others are official figures published on a delay. Here is the honest state of each, newest first:
Official immigration data is published on a delay. Some sources publish monthly, others only once a year. Where an agency offers a machine-readable feed we fetch it live at build time; the rest we keep as curated copies of official published figures, clearly labelled, never presented as more current than they are, and marked when the agency has published something newer.
- State WARN Layoff NoticesLive feed · 5 states: CA, NJ, TX, VA, WAState labor and workforce agencies · updates weeklyCurrentLatest: Notices through 2026-10-28 · through Oct 28, 20267,745 real noticesEvery notice links to its state portalPartial state coverage, not a national total
- BLS Unemployment RateLive feedU.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics · updates monthlyCurrentLatest: September 2026 · through Sep 30, 2026Live machine-readable API
- CBP Nationwide EncountersLive feedU.S. Customs and Border Protection (DHS) · updates monthly~2 months behindLatest: FY2026 through August 2026 · through Aug 31, 2026Live machine-readable CSV
- ICE Enforcement & RemovalsCurated · delayedU.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (DHS) · updates monthly~5 months behindLatest: FY2026 YTD (ERO dashboard) · through Jun 9, 2026Latest official published figuresDelayed reportingCurated / manual source
- State Dept Visa IssuancesCurated · delayedU.S. Department of State, Bureau of Consular Affairs · updates monthly~6 months behindOn this site: FY2026 year-to-date to about April 2026 · through Apr 30, 2026Latest official: Monthly tables through August 2026 · checked Oct 18, 2026Newer official release availableCurated / manual source
Visa figures were entered by hand from the State Department's monthly tables through about April 2026; some FY2025 and FY2026 values are rounded. The State Department has published newer monthly tables that this site has not loaded yet. Current-year figures are labelled projections, never reported totals.
- DOL OFLC Disclosure (LCA / PERM)Curated · delayedU.S. Department of Labor, Office of Foreign Labor Certification · updates quarterly~25 months behindOn this site: FY2024 · through Sep 30, 2024Latest official: FY2026 Q3 (determinations through Jun 30, 2026) · checked Oct 18, 2026Newer official release availableCurated / manual source
The average offered wage is modeled: approximate FY2024 offered wages for a curated set of large employers, entered by hand. It is not computed from the OFLC disclosure files, which DOL has since published through FY2026 Q3.
- USCIS H-1B Employer Data HubCurated · delayedU.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (DHS) · updates annual~37 months behindOn this site: FY2023 · through Sep 30, 2023Latest official: FY2026 through Q3 · checked Oct 18, 2026Newer official release availableCurated / manual source
Employer pages, rankings and the top-sponsor figures use the FY2023 Employer Data Hub export. USCIS has published newer data that this site has not loaded yet.
How it refreshes (and why it is not “live”)
A scheduled job re-runs the data pipeline and rebuilds the site. Sources with a reliable machine-readable feed are fetched automatically at build time (with a real fetchedAt stamp); the rest are maintained as the latest published values plus labelled projections until their feed is wired. “Last refreshed” is when our pipeline last ran. It is not a claim that the agencies publish in real time.
| Source | Feed | Mode | Last fetched |
|---|---|---|---|
| bls_unemployment | BLS Public Data API | auto-fetch | Oct 30, 2026, 4:08 AM UTC |
| cbp_encounters | CBP Nationwide Encounters (CSV) | auto-fetch | Oct 30, 2026, 4:09 AM UTC |
| ice_stats | ICE ERO statistics / annual report | published-report | — |
| uscis_h1b | USCIS H-1B Employer Data Hub (CSV) | published-file | — |
| dos_visa | State Dept monthly NIV/IV tables | published-table | — |
| dol_lca | DOL OFLC disclosure data | published-file | — |
| warn_layoffs | Texas via data.texas.gov (Socrata), TX only; other states curated | auto-fetch (partial) | Oct 30, 2026, 4:09 AM UTC |
Live example: the U.S. unemployment rate (4.2% for September 2026) was fetched from the BLS Public Data API at Oct 30, 2026, 4:08 AM UTC.
More
See the methodology for metric definitions, the sources page for every dataset.