Federal Trafficking Capacity Dashboard
A records-based view of the federal anti-trafficking pipeline: what is counted from referral through conviction, what is not counted, and how a protection benefit can leave survivors waiting years.
In plain language.
A tip is not a case. An investigation is not a charge. A charge is not a conviction. And a survivor who can wait years for protection has not reached safety because a form exists.
1. The handoff is mostly invisible. The hotline counts signals. Federal agencies count some investigations. No federal ledger shows how one becomes the other.
2. The middle is not one funnel. The FBI, HSI, DOJ, federal courts, and USCIS each publish different units at different times. A clean conversion rate would be made up.
3. The charge count has slowed. Reuters reported the slowest pace for sex-trafficking defendants since 2010 through June 2026. That is a capacity warning, not proof of fewer crimes.
4. Protection is a separate choke point. T-visa and U-visa queues concern people already seeking help. A statutory benefit can still fail in practice when the queue measures in years.
5. Blank cells are evidence. Where no agency publishes a stage count or duration, this dashboard says so. It does not fill a hole with arithmetic.
One pipeline. Several incompatible ledgers.
The stage names come from the dashboard record. The figures do not form a single cohort and must not be read as a conversion rate. Select a track to see the operational break most clearly.
Federal case track
The sharpest break is between a national signal count and a federal case count: no agency publishes the handoff.
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The wait for status is a capacity finding.
These figures should not be merged into one backlog total. They are different benefits, different populations, and different reporting dates. Together they show the scale of the queue facing crime victims who have already entered an immigration process.
T-visa and U-visa queues do not move at the speed of need.
A T-visa is specifically for trafficking survivors. A U-visa is for victims of qualifying crimes who assist law enforcement. Both are a test of protection capacity once a victim asks the government for status.
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Federal prosecution figures, stated as published.
These rows preserve each source's unit. A defendant, a case, an investigation, a referral, and a conviction are not interchangeable.
| Record | Published figure | Status |
|---|
TVPA reauthorizations, with visible gaps.
The statute has been reauthorized in bursts, not on a regular cycle. The intervals are calculated from the enactment years named in the record; the legal effects of each lapse require a separate appropriation and authority review.
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Make the breaks measurable.
The first action is not another awareness campaign. It is a common public record with defined units and dates.
DOJ publishes a cohort ledger.
Report a single annual cohort from referral, through intake, investigation, charge, disposition, and elapsed time. Identify the originating agency and the case identifier rule.
FBI and HSI publish disposition paths.
For each trafficking investigation opened, publish closure, referral, prosecution acceptance, and time-to-disposition. Do not report raw investigation totals alone.
USCIS reports victim-benefit queue age.
Publish monthly pending counts by filing month, principal and derivative category, approvals, denials, and median wait. Show how many people are waiting beyond each year mark.
Congress asks for one linked annual report.
Require the agencies to use consistent definitions, preserve privacy, and publish the handoffs that are currently invisible.
What is still unknown.
The missing figures are the dashboard's central finding. They block a real attrition calculation.
Tip-to-federal-case handoff
not published. The National Human Trafficking Hotline publishes signals and identified situations, but no federal agency publishes which signals become federal investigations or cases.
One federal cases-opened count
not published. FBI and HSI publish separate investigation totals. DOJ does not publish a reconciled, de-duplicated federal trafficking case-opening count.
Survivor services throughput
not published. There is no federal, case-linked count showing how many survivors receive services, for how long, or whether service access holds through case disposition.
Case duration by pipeline stage
not published. The record contains annual totals, not a public median from federal referral to investigation, charge, conviction, or victim-status decision.
The pipeline, explained.
A brief walkthrough of the stages that can be counted, the stages that cannot, and why the visa queues matter to a capacity audit.
Federal trafficking capacity, in brief
Referral, investigation, charge, conviction, protection status, and the data gaps between them.
What the record supports.
These are capacity conclusions, not estimates of prevalence or a verdict on individual caseworkers.
The country cannot publish one federal funnel.
The component agencies expose partial totals in different units. The handoffs are not public. Any smooth national funnel is presentation, not a released record.
The prosecution slowdown needs an explanation.
Reuters reported a slower sex-trafficking charging pace through June 2026 while DOJ declined to supply the case counts behind its different characterization. A capacity system should not ask the public to choose between unlinked claims.
A visa benefit can fail before denial.
A growing queue and a wait measured in years are a protection failure even where the benefit remains available on paper.
More raw investigations are not proof of better outcomes.
This is uncomfortable for advocates and agencies alike: an investigation count says nothing about charge acceptance, conviction, survivor stability, or time spent waiting.
The blank cells should be legislated away.
Privacy is not a reason to withhold aggregate cohort counts. A linked annual ledger can protect people while revealing where public capacity stops.