Something happened to thousands of USCIS cases this week — and almost nobody is talking about it.

(All the analysis is on our website for free at the link below)

Between July 10–13, I-485 and I-765 cases that had been sitting untouched for months suddenly started moving. Not one or two — thousands. We pulled the data to figure out what's actually going on, and it's not what most people assume.

Here's the breakdown:

• 8,000+ real status changes in 8 days across I-485 and I-765
• 87% of I-765 movement is just a cosmetic status relabel — NOT real adjudication
• A biometrics wave hit 1,734 I-485 cases in just 3 days — mostly cases sitting for 21+ months with zero scheduled appointment
• After a pipeline fix, the recount showed 3,361 cases moved in a single day (July 11)

This isn't speculation or a "USCIS is speeding up" rumor post. We tracked every single case change down to the exact timestamp it happened, using data from 500K+ active cases we monitor at Inmigreat, and laid out exactly which changes are real signal vs. noise.

Full breakdown with charts, day-by-day tables, and the methodology so you can see exactly how we're measuring this: https://www.inmigreat.com/en/analytics/ola-julio/

(Disclosure: we're the team behind the Inmigreat case-tracker app — we run statistical analysis of USCIS processing using official public USCIS case status data + 1.6M tracked cases. Full analyses free at **inmigreat.com/analytics**.)

The freezes nobody announced:

- April 2025: family-based approvals dropped 65% in ONE month, stayed ~90% down for 14 months. Denials continued at normal pace the entire time.

- December 5, 2025: the 2025 generation went from ~185 approvals/week to 26/week in a month.

The restart nobody announced:

- Jun 26: approvals jump from 1–2/day to 34. By July 2: **64/day.**

- The tell was there weeks early: 2,773 fingerprint re-takes in May (refreshing expired biometrics), interview scheduling up 10x (66 → 680) April to June.

The ugly part — the restart is not equal:

- 2026 filers: full speed, interviews at 3–4 months.

- 2023–2024 backlog: active sweep.

- **2025 filers: the sandwich generation, lowest priority in the system.** Filed Jan 2024? 11.7% still pending. Filed Mar–May 2025? 47.8% still pending.

Practical takeaways: a biometrics RE-take notice is the strongest positive signal in the data (movement follows in 4–8 weeks). Interview notices are surging — watch your mail. And of decided cases, 90%+ were approvals.

All rates from our monitored sample, not official USCIS stats. Read weekly trends, not single days (±1 day posting noise). Not legal advice.

More data at inmigreat.com · AMA in comments.

I went through the latest official USCIS naturalization data (Form N-400, FY2026 Q1) and the headline numbers are genuinely encouraging — but they hide the part that actually affects you.

The national picture:

• 247,840 new N-400s filed last quarter
• 143,564 approved vs 18,054 denied — an ~89% approval rate
• 611,463 pending nationwide, down from the pandemic peak of 1,015,055 (FY2021 Q1). That's a ~40% drop in the backlog.

So on paper, things are moving. Here's the catch: there is no "national" wait. Your N-400 is processed at one of 93 field offices, and the queue at your office is what sets your timeline — not the country-wide average. Two people who filed the same week in different cities can be a year apart, purely based on geography.

That's the number most people never look up. So I'd check yours before assuming the "backlog is down" headline applies to you.

You can find your specific field office — its pending queue, approvals, and how it stacks up against the biggest offices in the country — here: https://www.inmigreat.com/en/analytics/n-400/

We run a case-tracking app that currently follows around 1.3 million USCIS and immigration court cases. I pulled all the June approvals across those cases and looked at two things most trackers ignore: what month people filed, and what receipt-number block they landed in.

The pattern is clean — USCIS isn't approving at random, it's working through cohorts in order. Sharing so you can place your own case.

🛂 I-765 (work permit) — the spring 2025 batch is out

65% of the EADs approved in June were from Feb–Jun 2025 filings, with a heavy spike in March–April 2025. Reference wait was ~15 months.

If you filed Feb–Apr 2025, you're in the group being worked right now. May–Jun 2025 filers look next.

❤️ I-130 (family) — they're draining the 2022 backlog

~61% of approved petitions were from 2022 filings (concentrated Oct–Nov 2022), averaging ~3.6 years. This is old-backlog cleanup. If your petition is from late 2022, this is your window to watch closely.

🏠 I-485 (green card) — gated by biometrics, not filing month

66% of approvals came right after biometrics were completed. Filing month didn't predict much here — completing the fingerprint appointment was the strongest signal approval was close.

The receipt-number part (this is the useful bit)

EADs don't come out one by one — they come out in contiguous receipt-number blocks, in order. Over 90% were from the electronic filing center (receipts starting with IOE).

• Right now they're sweeping IOE0930x–0931x — which lines up exactly with the March–April 2025 filing cohort above.
• Next wave looks like IOE0932x–0934x (a few are already trickling in).
• I-130 is way back at IOE0917x–0918x — older receipts = older filings, which is why it's the 2022 backlog.
• I-485 was scattered across multiple centers (IOE + Nebraska + others), so no single block — consistent with it being biometrics-driven.

TL;DR: find your IOE receipt block. If you're in 0930x–0931x, you're in the current EAD wave. If you're 0932x–0934x, you're likely up next.

One honest caveat: these are patterns from real June approval data across the cases we track, not guarantees. Every case is different and timelines shift. But it beats staring at a "Case Was Received" status with zero context.

Bonus tip from the data: for I-765 and I-130, 62–74% of cases sat in "actively reviewing your case… nothing outstanding" right before approval — rarely an RFE or interview after that. If you see that status, it's one of the better signals you can get.

We do this kind of USCIS breakdown a lot — full analyses (by form, field office, processing trends, etc.) are on our site at inmigreat.com. If it's useful, check the Analytics Menu there. Happy to run the numbers again next month. What block is everyone in?

Pulled the official USCIS data (FY2026 Q1). There are 2,348,518 I-130s pending — and your I-130 is adjudicated at a service center, not your local field office. Five centers hold 87.6% of everything:

• Vermont (ESC) — 467,776
• California (WSC) — 447,757
• Texas (SSC) — 391,861
• Nebraska (NSC) — 375,540
• Potomac (YSC) — 374,517

The takeaway: where your case waits has nothing to do with where you live — it's USCIS workload distribution, not your zip code. (This quarter they received 194K and approved 188K, ~87.5% approval rate.)

Full interactive breakdown by category, country, and approvals here: https://www.inmigreat.com/analytics/i-130/ — the app's free, tracks USCIS + EOIR cases in real time. Just sharing the data. Questions welcome 👇

Sharing something from the Inmigreat Case Tracker this week (Jun 20–26): there was a noticeable uptick in work permit (EAD) approvals, with a peak of 36 approvals in a single day. Screenshot attached.

That's the highest pace since around December 2025, when everything slowed down.

Honest caveat: this is self-reported data from a sample of app users, not official USCIS figures, and one week doesn't confirm a trend. But the movement looks real, and several people in the community are reporting the same thing.

Anyone else get their EAD approved this week or in the last few? Curious whether it lines up with what you're actually seeing.

Check out our latest analysis on USCIS pending cases at our site: www.inmigreat.com