Immigrants have always been a key part of the American story, and remain crucial not only to communities across the country but also to the nation’s economic stability. Yet for many immigrants still looking to establish residency, reunite with their families, or get clearance for employment purposes, huge delays blight their progress. As things stand, millions of unresolved visa cases languish in the system well beyond standard application periods and may take years to process.
This study will highlight the people behind the numbers, focusing on who is most affected and the varying extent of delays for different types of visas.
But before we look at specific types of visa applications and associated backlogs, it’s worth considering national immigrant numbers to emphasize just how important immigrants are to the United States.
Immigrant Numbers in the United States
As of June 2025, there were 51.9 million immigrants in the United States, a 2.6% decrease from January 2025’s 53.3 million. For a closer look at a full dataset, we’ll go back a little earlier, to 2024.
In 2024, the United States’ first-generation (or foreign-born) population was around 51.28 million people. That number clearly underscores the magnitude and importance of the national immigrant population, which is close to evenly split with regards to gender. The immigrant population share comprised 25.91 million women and 25.37 million men, figures that dispel long-standing stereotypes suggesting immigration is predominantly led by males.
Based on the study data, the median age of first–generation immigrants is 46 years, signaling extensive integration into the workforce and broader economy, with many first-generation immigrants (39.3 million people, or 76.6% of the immigrant population, aged between 18 and 64) actively participating as employees, business owners, caregivers, and taxpayers.
This high median age also reflects long-term settlement patterns. These include family reunification and employment-based migration pathways that facilitate immigrants’ arrival to the U.S. during their working years, and which subsequently help to augment strong immigrant communities.
The sheer number of U.S. immigrants and their relatively high median age confirms immigration as a sustained, long-term structural national feature of the United States. As debates around visa processing backlogs and immigration policy continue, this data highlights the scale of the issue, with millions of adult lives (as well as their potentially significant economic contributions) stymied by administrative delays.
The number of older immigrants (8.7 million first–generation immigrants (16.9%) aged 65 and older) reflects long-term settlement and family reunification patterns. By comparison, children made up a relatively small portion of the first-generation population (just 3.3 million individuals (6.5%) under the age of 18), countering narratives that immigration is minor-centric.
When we look at second- and third-and-higher generation (and higher) populations in the U.S, the median age falls.
Among second-generation individuals, children under 18 make up the largest share (40.6%, around 17 million people), with just over half (51.2%) of working age, resulting in a median age of 22.6. By contrast, the third-and-higher-generation population is more widely spread across age groups: 58.4% are aged 18 to 64, 21.9% are under 18, and 19.7% are aged 65 and older, resulting in a significantly higher median age of 40.3.
Combined, these patterns illustrate how immigration contributes to generational population growth, with younger second-generation citizens becoming established third-generation citizens over time.
Yet, as things stand, immigrants are experiencing significant delays in their pursuit of American citizenship. Let’s take a deep dive into the data to find out more.
Citizenship Application Delays In The U.S.
When we closely examine the data pertaining to various types of citizenship applications, we can see the scale of the problem, particularly regarding applications for the removal of conditions of residence and petitions for an alien relative. In both cases (and in numerous others), the magnitude of the U.S. visa backlog and associated processing delays affects nearly every major immigration pathway, with millions of cases stuck in the system at any one time.
The biggest backlogs regard family reunification cases. I–130 petitions for alien relatives alone account for more than 2.36 million pending applications, with nearly 2 million cases taking longer than six months, and an average processing time of 15 months.
These prolonged delays can leave spouses, parents, and children in excruciating limbo, with extended periods of separation placing emotional and financial strain on families already established in the United States.
There are also significant employment-related delays, with more than 1.67 million employment authorization applications (I–765) pending, and over 1 million applicants forced to wait longer than six months for approval.
While the average processing time for these applications is comparatively short (4 months), the sheer volume of pending cases means many immigrants are temporarily unable to work legally. Even over a relatively short period, this can significantly disrupt a crucial source of household income, cause staff shortages, and restrict an immigrant’s ability to find alternate work.
Pathways to permanent residency and long-term legal stability are also seriously hampered. I–751 petitions to remove conditions on residence take around 21 months, meaning lawful residents must endure lengthy legal uncertainty. Additionally, both family- and employment-based adjustment-of-status applications are routinely subject to wait times approaching and even exceeding a year.
Even naturalization (the final step to full civic participation) has been problematic, with more than 640,000 N–400 applications pending nationwide.
Such delays across the full citizenship spectrum reveal a system under sustained pressure, with administrative logjams in turn affecting family unity, workforce stability, and long-term American social integration.
Let’s take a look at some broad immigration backlog figures.
As of mid-2025, the U.S. immigration system was managing a record–setting 11.3 million pending applications. That’s the highest backlog ever reported by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
These pending cases span nearly every major immigration pathway, including work authorization requests, family–based petitions, employment–based visas, adjustment–of–status applications, and naturalization filings. Such a broad range of incomplete applications and filings emphasizes the fact that delays are not confined to a single category but are system-wide.
Of these pending cases, around 5.4 million have already exceeded USCIS’s own internal processing time benchmarks, with prolonged delays now the norm as opposed to the exception.
Average processing times (when weighted across major visa categories) are now around 10 to 11 months, nearly a full year’s wait for routine immigration decisions.
Beyond the visible backlog, USCIS must also cope with a growing frontlog of more than 34,000 received applications not yet opened or formally entered into the adjudication pipeline.
This initial congestion signals that application delays begin before substantive review even starts, creating compounding bottlenecks that have a knock-on effect during later stages of the process. When so many received cases stall, subsequent adjudications are further delayed, which increases wait times across family reunification, workforce authorization, permanent residency, and citizenship pathways.
Overall, these figures reflect a system under sustained administrative strain, with delays at every stage contributing to prolonged uncertainty for millions of immigrants and their families.
And it’s worth considering what a real-time application timeline looks like for immigrants.
The Current Immigration Approval Timeline
For immigrants submitting applications in February 2026, current USCIS processing data shows that approvals are sluggish and often take a year or more, not ideal for anyone wanting to plan ahead regarding work, family life, and long-term stability.
Family–based I–130 petitions (which allow U.S. citizens and permanent residents to sponsor immediate relatives) currently take 14.5 to 17 months. So, an applicant filing in February 2026 shouldn’t expect a decision before April to July 2027, assuming there are no intervening requests for evidence or category-specific delays.
These lengthy averages actually understate the potential range of wait times. Study analysis suggests that some immediate-relative I-130 cases can take 17 to 60 months, pushing approvals for some families to the end of the decade.
Employment authorization (Form I-765), which determines whether applicants can legally work, continues to take an average of 10 to 11 months, meaning that approvals started in February 2026 will complete around December 2026 to January 2027—nearly a full year of employment uncertainty. Longer-term stability applications face even longer horizons: I-751 petitions (to remove conditions on residence) average roughly 21 months, meaning likely approvals can be expected for November 2027.
And naturalization (Form N–400) filings (which take 6 to 12 months) made in February 2026 should be resolved between August 2026 and February 2027.
Combined, these lengthy timelines underscore the harsh reality of the backlog: applications are the beginning of a long road along which an applicant must organize their career, housing, finances, and family reunification in anticipation of an approval that may take years, even in ‘routine’ cases.
Based on current approval timelines, an immigration applicant could watch three of the most iconic TV series in history – at a watching pace of one episode a day – in the time it takes to complete their U.S. visa process. In some cases, they could manage the feat three times.
A consecutive daily hour of Game of Thrones (73 episodes, ~73 hours), Breaking Bad (62 episodes, ~62 hours), and The Sopranos (86 episodes, ~86 hours) would take 221 days—a commitment that would easily allow for a concurrent employment authorization application (10-11 months, 305-335 days) and leave months to spare.
An applicant could carry out the same watching feat twice during the time a family–based I–130 petition takes (14.8–17 months), three times in the case of an I–751 petition to remove conditions on residence (21 months).
The contrast underscores how visa processing delays are measured not in episodes or seasons, but in weeks, months, and often years: long enough to binge multiple prestige series many times over before an approval arrives.
What Immigrant Applicants Do While Waiting
While patiently enduring one of the largest administrative backlogs in U.S. history, millions of immigrants in the United States aren’t simply ‘waiting around’. Instead, the vast majority are working, raising families, going to school, and contributing to their communities, despite their unresolved and potentially precarious legal status.
While they await prolonged outcomes, immigrants continue to actively participate in daily life. The 76.6 % of first–generation immigrants (about 39.3 million people) between ages 18 and 64 hold jobs in sectors such as health care, tech, construction, hospitality, education, caregiving, and retail: all areas of employment in which immigrant labor is critical to local economies. And yet, while they wait, administrative delays regarding their application may abruptly remove them from the workforce.
Hospitals have documented cases involving nurses, technicians, and support staff who were immediately terminated when Employment Authorization Documents (EADs) expired, even when renewals were pending. In other, similar circumstances, IT firms have sidelined H–4 and refugee workers, and nonprofit organizations have lost staff overnight due to renewal gaps, removals that disrupt both critical household income and equally vital delivery of services.
Once work authorization lapses, immigrants face a potentially impossible scenario: they cannot legally work for any employer, drive for rideshare or delivery platforms, or qualify for unemployment insurance in any U.S. state. (This is because unemployment eligibility requires valid work authorization throughout the base period and benefit period.)
As outlined by the National Employment Law Project, unemployment insurance rules require workers to be ‘able and available’ to work, which state agencies interpret as requiring current legal authorization. The National Immigration Law Center similarly confirms that individuals without valid work authorization are categorically ineligible for unemployment benefits, irrespective of prior employment history or tax contributions.
Many waiting immigrant applicants pursue education and training. Those eligible may enroll in community college, ESL programs, and professional certification courses to advance careers or meet licensure requirements in fields like nursing and IT.
Beyond the workforce, immigrants help stabilize U.S. schools and neighborhoods. Children of first-generation immigrants make up significant shares of K–12 classrooms, and since second-generation populations skew significantly younger (with a median age of 22.6, 40.6 % under age 18), they expand the demographic footprint of immigrant families while immigrant adults navigate visa queues.
Even routine immigration milestones intersect with daily life. With 1.67 million employment authorization (I–765) applications pending, including over 1 million waiting more than six months, many workers cannot lawfully accept employment in their trained fields, disrupting household income planning and employer staffing.
Lawful permanent residency pathways are similarly slowed. I–751 petitions to remove conditions on residence, which take nearly 21 months to process (while over 640,000 naturalization applications await approval), prevent even long-term residents from enjoying full civic participation.
Immigrants make the best of a difficult situation. Application delays and historical backlog numbers suggest stagnation, but the figures don’t reveal the vibrant, resilient reality for many generations of immigrants. Many work second jobs to support families, many immigrant students attend U.S. schools and universities, countless small business owners hire local workers, grandparents provide crucial childcare, and communities continue to nurture cultural diversity.
All of these often unseen factors continue to fuel local economies and enrich communities while the immigration system keeps applicants waiting.
The Average Costs of Waiting For A Resolved Immigration Application
Waiting for a visa approval involves a steep and often crippling financial cost, with applicants facing direct government fees that can easily amount to several thousand dollars.
Form I–130 now costs $675 (up 26%); I–485 costs $1,440 (up 18%); I–751 costs $710; I-765 costs range from $260 to $470; and naturalization (N–400) costs have risen from $640 to $760 (all figures according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services).
From 2025, more penalties were introduced, including a $250 ‘Visa Integrity Fee’ per visa and a $24 I–94 fee, while legal representation is also more expensive. Immigration attorneys often cite ‘backlog premiums’ as the reason they’ve increased their fees by 40% compared to 2020 figures, with prolonged timelines demanding additional filings, monitoring, and renewals.
Delays also trigger document re–costs—medical exams, police certificates, and even new passports, as old ones frequently expire during long waits, forcing applicants to pay to refile materials that had already been approved.
The largest burden, however, is that of lost income: immigrants awaiting employment authorization cannot collect unemployment benefits and may face 10–11 months of zero earnings during EAD processing, despite being otherwise employable.
With a median immigrant annual income of around $46,000 (roughly $3,833 per month), even a short authorization delay can mean a loss of tens of thousands of dollars of vital income.
For families separated by visa delays, costs multiply further through maintaining two households, international flights, and two lots of living expenses.
Overall, these additional pressures push the estimated monthly cost of waiting to roughly $4,200, combining lost wages, legal fees, and separation-related expenses. Such stark permutations turn ‘administrative delays’ into something much worse: a sustained financial drain.
The Continuing Dire Consequences of the U.S. Visa Backlog
The U.S. first-generation immigrant population of 51.9 million, with its median age of 46 and a working-age (18 to 64) population of 39.3 million people, is a crucial part of the country’s economy and often the backbone of its communities and culture. Second- and third-and-higher immigrant generations are no less vital to the country’s future and growth. Yet historically-prolonged visa applications have never been more difficult to resolve, with knock-on effects that are complex and highly significant.
Some immediate–relative I–130 cases can take 17 to 60 months, pushing approvals for some families to the end of the decade.
As of mid-2025, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is managing a record 11.3 million pending applications, spanning nearly every major immigrant pathway, including family reunification, employment authorization, permanent residency, and citizenship.
An estimated 5.4 million of these cases have already exceeded USCIS’s own internal processing benchmarks, with average wait times now approaching 10 to 11 months even for routine filings, signaling that prolonged delays have become the norm rather than the exception.
Family-based petitions remain the most congested, with over 2.36 million I–130 applications pending, nearly 2 million delayed beyond six months, keeping spouses, parents, and children separated across borders for extended periods.
Employment authorization backlogs further compound the impact, with 1.67 million I–765 applications pending, more than 1 million of which exceed six months, temporarily preventing otherwise employable workers from participating fully in the labor market or accessing unemployment insurance during authorization gaps.
And the wait for resolution can go on for up to 5 years, a period during which resources can run out, just as passports can expire, adding more cost and administrative delays.
Ultimately, the data reveals an immigration system where millions of working-age adults actively live American lives while navigating prolonged uncertainty, and negotiating extensive, emotionally and financially draining administrative delays.
And it’s not just the immigrant population that suffers: while delays continue, a crucial American workforce asset cannot contribute. Until things are made easier for countless immigrants, both they and the country in which they wish to grow old lose out.
Attorney María Mendoza was born on the outskirts of El Paso, Texas, to a single-parent Mexican mother who immigrated to the United States under the Bracero program. Her mother picked onions and other agricultural products under the hot sun for very little pay and in poor working conditions.
She understands very well the difficulties of being undocumented and the problems that Latino immigrants face because she has lived through them.
Her goal is to help her clients realize the American Dream, just as her family fought all odds to immigrate to the United States to have a better life. If you need help from The Mendoza Law Firm, get in touch today.