The stack of immigration applications waiting on a decision from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has swelled to 11.3 million, and freshly compiled agency figures suggest the backlog is still growing rather than shrinking. That's according to an analysis the American Immigration Council released in early August, which found pending cases up 16.5 percent — a jump of more than 1.6 million — from roughly 9.7 million a year earlier.
A Familiar Number, Read Two Ways
That 11.3 million figure isn't the first eye-popping total this year. A separate dashboard the Council built earlier in 2026, drawing on more than 20,000 data points spanning over 190 benefit categories across the past decade, had already put the caseload at 11.6 million for the quarter ending in September 2025 — technically an earlier snapshot than the 11.3 million figure, which covers the quarter that ended in December. Read together, the two counts show a caseload that has stayed above 11 million for the better part of a year rather than one climbing in a straight line every quarter.
A narrower measure called the "net backlog" — cases that have blown past USCIS's own processing-time targets and aren't simply waiting on the applicant or an unavailable visa — reached 6.3 million as of December 31, about 2 million higher than twelve months prior, per the Niskanen Center's tracking of the same underlying agency data.
Fewer New Filings, Yet the Pile Keeps Growing
What makes the numbers notable isn't just their size — it's that they're rising even as USCIS is receiving far less new work. Filings dropped by roughly a third and completions fell by more than 40 percent compared with the same quarter last year. Even with that lighter workload, the agency still closed out only 86 cases for every 100 that came in during the final quarter of 2025 — the eleventh straight quarter in which completions have trailed new receipts, according to the Council's analysis.
The strain shows up starkly in work-permit numbers. The backlog for Form I-765 employment authorization applications grew by 446,650 cases, a 38 percent jump, and the subset filed by people with pending green-card applications nearly tripled — from about 154,000 cases to more than 461,000. Refugees trying to finalize their green cards fared even worse: USCIS closed only 3,536 of their applications last quarter, down sharply from 17,756 a year earlier, despite receiving more requests than before.
The Wait Has Nearly Doubled
Applicants are feeling all of this in how long they wait. Looking at the most recent quarter alone, the average time needed to work through the backlog jumped from 9.4 months to 18.6 months compared with the same quarter a year ago. A separate, calendar-year comparison tells a similar story: the yearly average rose from 8.9 months in 2024 to 14.4 months in 2025, a 61.8 percent increase. The most extreme swing hit asylees applying to adjust their status to a green card — their typical wait stretched from under eight months to nearly six years.
Getting a Yes Is Harder Too
Beyond the wait, the odds of approval have worsened. The overall denial rate climbed from 8.9 percent to 12.2 percent year over year. Employment-based categories were hit especially hard: denials across all EB-1 petitions rose from 13.9 percent to 30.1 percent, with the EB-1A track for people with extraordinary ability more than doubling, from 25.3 percent to 52.5 percent, and National Interest Waiver petitions climbing from 37.3 percent to 57.4 percent. Humanitarian categories saw the steepest increases of all — nearly 89 percent of humanitarian parole requests were turned down, up from just under 53 percent a year earlier, while parole-in-place denials more than doubled, to 45.8 percent.
New Vetting Rules Are a Big Part of the Story
Much of the slowdown traces back to a set of new screening requirements the administration began rolling out at the end of 2025. On December 2, USCIS quietly froze decisions on green cards, work permits, naturalization, and asylum claims for people from 39 countries tied to the administration's travel-ban list. A federal judge in Rhode Island struck the policy down nationwide on June 5, 2026, finding the government had shown little justification for keeping the freeze in place.
Even as that litigation played out, USCIS layered on a broader set of "enhanced security checks" this spring, which lawmakers say have paused adjudications well beyond the 39 affected countries. Twenty-three members of Congress, led by Reps. Raja Krishnamoorthi and Suhas Subramanyam, wrote to USCIS Director Joseph Edlow and FBI Director Kash Patel on June 4 demanding answers on how many cases had been affected, warning that added vetting "should not serve as the basis for an indefinite moratorium on adjudications." Separately, USCIS's own affirmative-asylum backlog has climbed past 1.4 million cases, adding still more weight to the broader pileup.
The Agency's Answer: A New Asylum Rule
USCIS hasn't stayed quiet about the numbers. In late July, the Department of Homeland Security rolled out a rule letting the agency send certain affirmative asylum applications straight to immigration judges rather than holding an interview first, a change officials say could affect roughly a third of the pending asylum caseload. Director Edlow argued the change was overdue, saying the asylum system "has been exploited for purposes of delay" rather than for legitimate protection claims, and that the shift would let the agency focus resources on cases most likely to be genuine.
Whether the rule actually shrinks the backlog will likely come down to how many cases are diverted in practice — and whether new filings and continued vetting delays keep piling up faster than USCIS can work through them.
