The delay in the processing of immigration applications has increased sharply and reached 8,8 million applications

USCIS pending cases have more than quadrupled in the past 12 years, from 2 million in the second quarter of 2010 to 8,8 million in the third quarter of 2022, reports CATO.

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The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is responsible for the widest range of immigration benefits, including work permits and green card applications from immigrants already in the United States. This broad jurisdiction makes the USCIS backlog the most important of the four departments with authority to process immigration documents.

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This increase of 6,8 million (from 2 million to 8,8 million) represents an increase from cases received in the quarter at the end of FY 2010 to the number of cases received in the year in FY 2022.

There has been a significant increase in pending cases in each category of immigration benefits. At 2 million cases, the largest component of backlogs are petitions for family reasons - backlogs have increased by 1,3 million since 2010. Employment Authorization Documents (EAD) comes in second with 1,5 million pending cases. Asylum applications plus immigrants who are pending green card applications are the most common EAD applicants.

Approximately 1,2 million applicants are awaiting humanitarian status, with asylum seekers, temporary protection status and non-immigrant status for crime victims leading the category. Nearly 900 legal permanent residents are trying to replace or renew their green card. Naturalization and citizenship applications are the fifth largest group with over 000 pending cases. New applications for a green card (or change of status to permanent residence) account for nearly 850 cases. The travel permit exceeds 000 applications. There are almost 800 employer petitions. Other types of petitions for benefits (mostly waivers of ineligibility and change or extension of nonimmigrant status) number nearly 000.

To date, the biggest change has been in the number of EADs awaiting, which has more than tenfold increased from less than 150 in 000 to over 2010 million in 1,5. This category alone accounts for 2022 percent of the increase in backlogs. This makes sense because a work permit is often triggered when other applications are delayed. Delayed applications for green cards (21) and asylum (443) are the most delayed categories for work permits, making this a lag within the lag.

Since 2016, over a million such cases have been added to the pending list. An equally astonishing increase has occurred for legal permanent residents applying for a replacement or renewal green card. The rules require green cards to be renewed every 10 years, and the queue of 888 represents nearly a full year of applicants who have obtained legal permanent residence in the United States.

Backlog leads to a sharp increase in the waiting time for benefits. USCIS reports on wait times are often difficult to parse because they mostly focus on the median of completed cases. By not disclosing the average, the agency can prevent the most late cases from contributing to the processing delay rate. In addition, an agency can endure a huge number of very long pending cases without impacting its performance. Recently, however, USCIS has begun releasing more detailed processing data that shows large differences in outcomes for even the same application type in the same year.

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The average processing time for all forms for which USCIS reports data has tripled, from less than 4 months in 2012 to more than a year in 2022. However, the 80th percentile in the places with the longest delays was twice as long, with an average of 27 months, and 20% of applicants in those places waited even longer. For example, Form I-90 for green card replacement or renewal shows how skewed USCIS's focus on average processing time is. The median wait for I-90 is only 1 month, the 80th percentile is 15 months, and the 93rd percentile is over 20 months—15 to 20 times longer.

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