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'.
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 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 the latest official published figures, clearly labelled and never presented as more current than they are.
- State WARN Layoff NoticesLive feed · Texas onlyState labor / workforce agencies (WARN Act filings) · updates weeklyCurrentLatest: 2026 year-to-date (Texas) · through Jul 31, 2026Live feed (Texas)Other states curated
- CBP Nationwide EncountersLive feedU.S. Customs and Border Protection (DHS) · updates monthlyCurrentLatest: FY2026 through June 2026 · through Jun 30, 2026Live machine-readable CSV
- BLS Unemployment RateLive feedU.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics · updates monthlyCurrentLatest: June 2026 · through Jun 30, 2026Live machine-readable API
- ICE Enforcement & RemovalsCurated · delayedU.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (DHS) · updates monthly~2 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~10 months behindLatest: Monthly tables to Sep 2025 · FY2024 annual · through Sep 30, 2025Latest official published figuresDelayed reportingCurated / manual source
The State Department publishes monthly issuances as PDFs on a lag (no machine-readable feed). Current-year figures shown on the site are clearly-labelled projections until the official tables catch up — we never present them as reported totals.
- USCIS H-1B Employer Data HubCurated · delayedU.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (DHS) · updates annual~22 months behindLatest: FY2024 (latest release) · through Sep 30, 2024Latest official published figuresDelayed reportingCurated / manual source
- DOL OFLC Disclosure (LCA / PERM)Curated · delayedU.S. Department of Labor, Office of Foreign Labor Certification · updates quarterly~22 months behindLatest: FY2024 (latest release) · through Sep 30, 2024Latest official published figuresDelayed reportingCurated / manual source
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 | Jul 31, 2026, 11:38 AM UTC |
| cbp_encounters | CBP Nationwide Encounters (CSV) | auto-fetch | Jul 31, 2026, 11:38 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) | Jul 31, 2026, 11:38 AM UTC |
Live example: the U.S. unemployment rate (4.2% for June 2026) was fetched from the BLS Public Data API at Jul 31, 2026, 11:38 AM UTC.
More
See the methodology for metric definitions, the sources page for every dataset, and the refresh status page for per-source ingestion health.