Immigration backlogs are spread across several systems rather than represented by one universal number. USCIS reported about 4.2 million cases in net-backlog status in fiscal year (FY) 2023, while the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) later reported more than 3.9 million pending immigration-court cases in its FY 2026 budget summary. Processing times, asylum queues, court cases, and visa priority dates measure different parts of the system and should not be added together.
Contents
- USCIS workload and net backlog
- Median processing times for major benefits
- Asylum and refugee queues
- Immigration court backlog
- Visa limits and priority dates
- Specialized programs and naturalization
USCIS workload and net backlog
USCIS reported receiving 10.9 million immigration benefit cases in FY 2023 and processing 10.8 million cases to completion during that fiscal year. The agency said it eliminated about 765,000 cases from its backlog and reported roughly 4.2 million cases in net-backlog status. Its reported net backlog fell 15% in FY 2023.
These figures describe agency workload and a net backlog, not every person waiting in every immigration channel. They also describe a fiscal-year snapshot. The source is the USCIS report Impact of the Homeland Security Act on the Immigration Functions Transferred to the Department of Homeland Security: Fiscal Year 2023 (USCIS, FY 2023).
The volume of cases completed helps put the backlog figure in context. USCIS completed nearly as many cases as it received in FY 2023, but the difference between receipts and completions does not by itself represent the change in the net backlog. The agency separately reported the approximately 765,000 reduction and the 15% decline.
Median processing times for major benefits
USCIS historic processing-time figures provide a different view: the time taken for completed cases. The following are national medians for FY 2026 data through July 31, 2026, rather than counts of pending cases.
| Benefit or case type | Median processing time |
|---|---|
| Form I-130 immediate-relative petition | 12.9 months |
| Form I-129F fiancé(e) petition | 8.0 months |
| Form I-131 travel-document request | 14.9 months |
| Non-premium Form I-129 nonimmigrant-worker petition | 5.2 months |
| Non-premium Form I-140 immigrant-worker petition | 3.7 months |
| Employment-based I-485 adjustment application | 5.9 months |
| Family-based I-485 adjustment application | 6.0 months |
| Form I-601A provisional unlawful-presence waiver | 24.3 months |
The shortest median in this group was 3.7 months for a non-premium I-140 immigrant-worker petition. The longest was 24.3 months for an I-601A provisional unlawful-presence waiver. These are medians, so half of completed cases took less time and half took more time within the measured group; they are not guarantees for a new filing.
Additional adjustment and family-related figures show how sharply timelines can vary by case type. The median was 19.7 months for an I-485 adjustment application based on asylum granted more than one year earlier, 7.8 months for a refugee-based I-485 filed more than one year after admission, 23.8 months for Form I-730 asylee-relative petitions, and 22.7 months for I-751 petitions to remove residence conditions.
By contrast, the median was 0.7 months for employment authorization based on a pending asylum application. That number concerns a specific work-authorization category and should not be interpreted as the time required to decide the underlying asylum case.
All of these FY 2026 historic figures come from USCIS’s Historic Processing Times table. USCIS notes that the figures are national medians for completed cases, run through July 31, 2026, and are not directly comparable with the agency’s current processing-time methodology.
Asylum and refugee queues
Affirmative asylum data show a long-running queue within the USCIS asylum system. USCIS listed 217,610 affirmative asylum applications filed in FY 2018 or earlier as still pending on September 30, 2023. In FY 2022, USCIS completed 39,023 affirmative asylum applications, and applications filed in FY 2018 or earlier represented 38% of those completions.
The older filing group therefore remained visible in completion data even after several years. The figures do not establish how long every pending application had been waiting, nor do they describe defensive asylum cases decided through immigration court. They come from the USCIS document Immigration and Citizenship Data, measured at September 30, 2023 and FY 2022.
Refugee processing indicators add another, distinct queue. The U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) resolved cases for more than 33,000 applicants from its backlog of cases referred before FY 2018 from the beginning of FY 2024 through September 11, 2024. During FY 2024 through September 11, USCIS interviewed approximately 11,800 Afghan refugee applicants at Camp As Sayliyah. Across FY 2024, as of September 11, USCIS had interviewed more than 26,100 Afghan applicants, compared with approximately 10,000 in FY 2023.
The refugee figures are activity measures and do not equal the number of unresolved refugee cases. They are reported in Refugee Processing National Stakeholder Engagement (USCIS, FY 2023 and FY 2024 through September 11, 2024).
For a related USCIS benefit, the FY 2026 median through July 31, 2026 was 19.7 months for I-485 applications based on an asylum grant more than one year earlier. That is a completed-case processing-time measure, not a count of pending asylum applications.
Immigration court backlog
EOIR reported more than 3.9 million pending immigration-court cases in its FY 2026 budget summary. EOIR said that the pending caseload had grown to more than two times its beginning-of-FY-2022 level. The same summary reported more than 700,000 immigration cases completed in FY 2024, a 124% increase in completions from FY 2022 to FY 2024.
New receipts also affected the queue. The Department of Homeland Security filed nearly 1.8 million Notices to Appear with EOIR in FY 2024, and EOIR said FY 2024 Notice-to-Appear receipts were more than two times the receipts filed in FY 2022.
| Immigration-court measure | Reported figure | Period |
|---|---|---|
| Pending court cases | More than 3.9 million | FY 2026 budget summary |
| Completed cases | More than 700,000 | FY 2024 |
| Completion change | 124% increase | FY 2022–FY 2024 |
| Notices to Appear filed by DHS | Nearly 1.8 million | FY 2024 |
| Pending cases at FY 2023 close | More than 2.4 million | End of FY 2023 |
| Pending cases | 656,067 | End of FY 2017 |
The earlier comparison point comes from EOIR’s Statistics Yearbook FY 2017, which recorded 656,067 pending immigration-court cases at the end of FY 2017. EOIR’s FY 2023 figure of more than 2.4 million appears in the USCIS FY 2023 report, while the larger FY 2026 figure comes from FY 2026 Budget and Performance Summary. These snapshots use different dates and reporting documents.
EOIR separately announced that it completed more than 722,000 cases during the first 11 months of FY 2025. It reported reducing the pending caseload by more than 447,000 cases after January 20, 2025, with the caseload falling from more than 4.18 million to under 3.75 million between January 20 and September 4, 2025. Those figures are from EOIR Announces Significant Immigration Court Milestones. The date range and measurement point matter when comparing them with the FY 2026 budget summary.
Visa limits and priority dates
Visa Bulletin figures describe numerically limited immigrant categories. They are not a headcount of everyone waiting for an immigration benefit. In FY 2026, the family-sponsored preference immigrant limit was 226,000 visas, and the worldwide employment-based preference level was at least 140,000 visas. The per-country preference limit was 25,620 visas, while the dependent-area preference limit was 7,320 visas. The diversity-visa annual limit was approximately 52,000 after statutory reductions.
Priority dates show how far a category’s final-action queue had advanced at a particular point. In the April 2026 Visa Bulletin, the worldwide final-action cutoffs were:
| Category | April 2026 worldwide final-action cutoff |
|---|---|
| F1 | May 1, 2017 |
| F2A | February 1, 2024 |
| F2B | May 22, 2017 |
| F3 | December 22, 2011 |
| F4 | June 8, 2008 |
For India employment categories in April 2026, the first-preference cutoff was April 1, 2023; the second-preference cutoff was July 15, 2014; and the third-preference cutoff was November 15, 2013. A cutoff date is a priority-date threshold for a category and chargeability area, not an estimate that every applicant before or after it will wait a fixed number of months.
These annual limits and April 2026 cutoffs are from the State Department’s Visa Bulletin For April 2026. Visa-bulletin dates and USCIS or EOIR case counts measure different queues and should not be combined into a single backlog total.
Specialized programs and naturalization
USCIS processing-time medians also identify unusually long or specialized queues. Through July 31, 2026, the median was 95.5 months for legacy Form I-526 investor petitions. The median for standalone Form I-526 investor petitions was 26.3 months, compared with 11.3 months for Form I-526E regional-center investor petitions.
Other humanitarian and protection-related forms had different FY 2026 medians: 18.5 months for Form I-918 U nonimmigrant-status petitions, 28.6 months for Form I-914 T nonimmigrant-status applications, and 12.4 months for Form I-821 Temporary Protected Status applications.
Naturalization-related processing was shorter in the same USCIS table. The median for nonmilitary Form N-400 naturalization applications was 7.1 months, and the median for Form N-565 replacement naturalization or citizenship documents was 7.2 months.
The range—from 0.7 months for one asylum-based employment-authorization category to 95.5 months for legacy I-526 investor petitions—shows why a single “immigration backlog” number cannot describe an individual case. The relevant queue depends on the benefit, filing type, agency, measurement date, and, for immigrant visas, the applicable category and chargeability area. These specialized figures are from USCIS Historic Processing Times, with FY 2026 data through July 31, 2026.