# Understanding our H-2A Employer Data Hub

On Feb. 25, 2022, we launched the H-2A Employer Data Hub to provide information on U.S. employers or U.S. agents (H-2A petitioners) petitioning for H-2A workers. The data hub provides an additional layer of transparency to the H-2A program by allowing the public to search for H-2A petitioners by fiscal year, employer (petitioner) name, city, state, ZIP code, worksite state, North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code, and Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) code.

We process an average of 8 million applications, petitions, and requests annually. These include more than half a million Form I-129, Petition for a Nonimmigrant Worker including petitions for H-2A workers and other employment-based nonimmigrant workers. We receive many requests from Congress, research institutions, the media, and the public about the H-2A program and how the H-2A visas are allocated by petitioner information or job type. We strive to make as much data about our operations available to the public as possible. We do so to improve understanding of the immigration system and to comply with our reporting mandates.

## How We Collect the Data

Employers or agents petitioning for temporary agricultural workers must obtain a single valid temporary employment certification (TLC) from the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), before filing a Form I-129 with USCIS. The data in the H-2A Employer Data Hub are from fields on an employer’s Form I-129, from USCIS’ adjudicative decisions, and from the DOL H-2A Application for Temporary Employment Certification (Form ETA-9142A  (PDF)) and DOL H-2A Agricultural Clearance Order (Form ETA-790A  (PDF)). The approval and denial data in the data hub reflect our first adjudicative decision. The data does not include later decisions, such as a decision on an appeal or revocation of an approved petition. The data hub does not include petitions that are pending adjudication when USCIS generates the data. Four data elements included in the data hub are from the DOL Temporary Employment Certification, specifically the SOC code, NAICS code, wage level, and worksite state. DOL provides quarterly H-2A TLC Disclosure data on its public website.

We merge DOL Forms ETA-9142A and ETA-790A data with USCIS data by matching the ETA case number. We did not include the ETA Case Number data in USCIS’ data systems until fiscal year 2018. As such, data from the DOL Forms ETA-9142A and ETA-790A (SOC code, NAICS code, wage level, and worksite state) are not available in the H-2A Employer Data Hub for FY 2015 through FY 2017.

## Data Accuracy

We strive to ensure that the data in our electronic systems are accurate; however, because we transfer data from paper forms into the electronic systems manually, data entry errors may occur. Additionally, the petitioner (or their representative or preparer) reports information on a paper form, so there may be errors on the forms when we receive them. For example, a petitioner may mix up numbers in their tax identification number.

Data entry and petitioner errors may result in a missing or erroneous employer name (or both), tax ID, state, city, or ZIP code in our electronic systems.

You can find information on the accuracy and disclosure of DOL temporary labor certification data on the DOL website. We do not have any rights or privileges to DOL data except that which is made available to the public and therefore we cannot attest to the quality of the data.

## How We Organize and Maintain the Data Hub  

We aggregate the counts of initial approval, initial denial, continuing approval, and continuing denial by fiscal year, employer tax ID, employer state, city, ZIP code, worksite state, two-digit NAICS code, two-digit SOC code, wage level, and whether visas were consular processed. For example, one employer with several addresses in a given fiscal year will have multiple rows in the data. We use the most common spelling of employer name per unique tax ID.

We anticipate updating the H-2A Employer Data Hub quarterly and providing downloadable data files. For example, we will provide data for the first quarter (October-December) of a fiscal year in April of the fiscal year. This timeline allows us to receive and process petitions as well as download and merge DOL data for each quarter.

## H-2A Employer Data Hub Glossary

For additional reporting on the H-2A visa program, see USCIS Reports and Studies and USCIS Immigration and Citizenship Data.

02/25/2022

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