Delays: US Immigration Agency accumulates more than 8.7 million pending cases

Esperança Esperança

Dec 3, 2022

Applications for the I-130 form (Green Card application by family) take the longest (Photo:Reuters - Mike Blake) With more than eight million backlogs, the wait time for immigrants for a service from the US immigration agency has been long. Data from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) reveal that, as of September 30 of this year, there were 8,753,371 pending applications. The highest number since March 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic forced the temporary closure of the agency's offices across the country. “It's a serious situation,” Lilia Velásquez, an adjunct professor at the University of California School of Law, told Univision. According to her, the situation is mainly due to the high number of asylum cases that are filed daily at the border with Mexico. “And it will grow much more when the Title 42 policy is eliminated”, warns the professor. The application queue for the form I-130 (Green Card application by family) is the largest, with 1,699,329 applications. Next comes the I-765 (permits or work permits), with 1,512,258. The third place is occupied by requests through the I-90 form (replaces the green card), with 1,009,769 pending. Permanent residency or adjustment of status applicants via Form I-485, and citizenship processes are also on hold. Last month, a group of immigrants even sued the USCIS for the excessive delay in naturalization, which threatened them to exercise their right to vote in the November 2022 elections. With regard to asylum applications, as of June 30, there were 505,093 applications for form I-589; not to mention another nearly two million that are processed at the Immigration Case Review Office, EOIR. Since fiscal 2010, the backlog of cases at USCIS has multiplied more than fourfold. The increase in immigration to the United States, in general, is also pointed out as a cause for the overload of processes. In 2017, the first year of Donald Trump's administration, there were 5,606,618 pending benefit claims. Four years later, in 2021, when Biden arrived at the White House, the queue registered 6,380,926 cases pending resolution. #I-130 #cases #imigration #processtime

MM HDec 3, 2022

thanks for sharing! the numbers are so frustrating. behind each number, it is every single individual/family impacted!!!

gy gyDec 4, 2022

double or triple that number for each case, and guess how many people are there still waiting to be with thier loved ones. thank you for sharing this

Pal sabyFeb 12, 2023

I am not sure how true it ism but i heard with more cases old cases push back. All I know last time i went to visit my Immigration lawyer her office was a full of people from all over to file their cases.

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