USCIS Launches New Online H-1B Employer Data Hub

As a part of ongoing efforts by United States Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) to revamp the H-1B visa program and the agency's effort to "increase transparency in employment-based visa programs," USCIS has made active its new H-1B Employer Data Hub.

The H-1B Employer Data Hub now facilitates public access to information concerning: Petitioners/Employers participating in the H-1B visa program; corresponding NAICS (industry classification) codes for insight into breakdowns by industry area; worksite locations; and, perhaps of most interest, statistics concerning approval and denial rates by employer. This information can be searched in function of the government's fiscal year or for all covered periods, going back to 2009. The data represents inputs from fields from all Forms I-129, Petition for Nonimmigrant Worker H-1B filings made to the agency as well as outcomes of adjudicative decisions (that is, approvals and denials). Of note, the approval and denial data in the data hub reflects USCIS's first decision on a petition, and subsequent decisions, such as on appeal or revocation, are excluded. Therefore, statistics concerning approvals and denials do not fully capture ultimate numbers, but should nonetheless, shed significant light on both petitioners using the program as well as insight into USCIS adjudicatory trends in a time where shifts in adjudicative policies have led to the imposition of higher hurdles for securing immigration benefits. Indeed, a review of data from recent fiscal years evinces that denial numbers are generally on the rise.

In conjunction with the release of this database, USCIS has also consolidated data organized by fiscal year that can be downloaded as Excel files, found here. USCIS has stated that it intends to provide quarterly updates to the Hub as well as annual releases of the pertinent data.