NRI PULSE STAFF REPORT
Washington, D.C., March 13, 2026: A key U.S. government database that tracks companies hiring foreign workers under the H-1B visa program briefly went offline this week, raising concerns among immigration analysts and researchers who rely on the data to understand how the program is used.
The H-1B Employer Data Hub, maintained by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), is a public database that allows users to search for companies sponsoring H-1B workers and review approval and denial rates for visa petitions. For several days, the site’s search tools, interactive map, and downloadable datasets were unavailable.
The outage occurred during the annual H-1B registration period, when employers submit electronic registrations for the visa lottery. The timing drew attention from immigration lawyers, researchers, and journalists who frequently consult the database to track hiring trends and employer participation in the program.
USCIS said the disruption was caused by technical issues and that the agency was working to restore the system. The website has since become accessible again, although some users reported that certain datasets appeared incomplete or outdated.
Launched in 2019, the H-1B Employer Data Hub was designed to improve transparency in the visa system by allowing the public to examine how employers use the program. The database allows users to search for sponsoring companies, review petition outcomes, and download data covering several years of H-1B filings.
The temporary disappearance of the database raised concerns among immigration analysts and researchers, who say the hub is an important transparency tool for understanding how the H-1B visa program is used. The database allows the public to track which companies sponsor foreign workers, how often applications are approved or denied, and where H-1B workers are employed across the United States.
The H-1B visa program allows U.S. employers to hire foreign professionals in specialized fields such as technology, engineering, and medicine. Each year, tens of thousands of highly skilled workers enter the United States through the program, with Indian nationals accounting for the largest share of recipients.
USCIS has not provided a timeline for when all features and datasets of the H-1B Employer Data Hub will be fully restored.
