[Qgis-user] merge shapefiles into one

[Mark Fogarty]

hi. i'm new to the list and qgis, apologies if this has been asked. we're
working with the us census tract files available from census.gov here:

https://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/geo/shapefiles/index.php?year=2019&layergroup
=Census+Tracts

they are published as 54 separate zip files, one per state. we would like to
combine them into a single dataset. i found a lot of pages on the web that
suggest using qgis for that purpose. they all start with 

Click on the Vector menu, Data Management tools, Merge Shapefiles to
One...   

i just installed qgis 3.12.1, but my vector / data management tools menu
doesn't have that option. has that tool been removed, or is there a plugin i
need to install or maybe a different version? 

is that data already available in a combined format from somewhere, or is
there a better way to do this? 

thanks