Over at GitHub, I’ve added source files for a little tool that generates tables of Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) U.S.-Mexico border migration data since 2020. (CBP updates its dataset every month; as of now, that’s a CSV file with 61,567 rows.)

Here’s what this looks like. First, you see a form asking you to choose what you want to see. In this example, the selected checkboxes ask for, by year, how many Venezuelan family-unit members and unaccompanied children came to ports of entry, or arrived between ports of entry, in Border Patrol’s El Paso Sector and CBP’s El Paso Field Office.

Screenshot of form showing selections: "Year," "At Ports of Entry or Between Them," "El Paso Sector," "El Paso Field Office," "Venezuela," "Family Unit Members," "Unaccompanied Children"

And here’s the resulting table.

This is super-useful for my work, and I’m happy to share it. But generating the tables is pretty server-intensive. A search for monthly data, with a column for every month since October 2019, takes at least several seconds to generate as the MySQL server processes separate queries for each table cell.

So while I’ve got a working version of this on the web somewhere, I can’t make it public because if dozens of people use it each day, I’ll get some stern notes from my web hosting service.

But all the source files are on GitHub: it’s just 3 PHP files and an SQL version of CBP’s dataset. This will take you a couple of minutes to set up if you’re familiar with using free software (like MAMP for Mac, WAMP for Windows, or LAMP for Linux) to run a web server, unconnected to the internet, on your computer.

Here’s screenshots of a form showing a search for, by month and nationality, how many migrants were encountered in Border Patrol’s Yuma Sector, and the very large resulting table.

Screenshot of form showing selections: "Month," "Nationality," and "Yuma Sector"

Screenshot of resulting table