What this is

I built Track Migrations because the numbers in the immigration debate rarely come with context. A headline says “2.4 million encounters” and most people have no frame of reference for what that means, where those people came from, or what happened to them after they arrived.

This site tries to make the data tangible. Each dot on the map represents roughly 300 people. The editorial sections below the map reframe the numbers around real contributions: taxes paid, industries sustained, GDP growth. The goal is to show both the scale and the humanity behind immigration data without taking a political position.

The data comes from US government sources: CBP for border encounters, Census ACS for settlement patterns, USCIS for legal admissions, and several research institutions for economic impact. Full sourcing is on the methodology page.

Track Migrations is a sister project to Track Policy, which maps AI and data center legislation. Both projects share the same premise: make public data accessible enough that people can form their own opinions with real information in front of them.