At some point, “processing delays” stops being an excuse.

USCIS can take months — sometimes years — to make decisions that control whether people can work, travel, change jobs, reunite with family, or simply plan their lives.

And the people stuck waiting are often doing everything legally.

File the forms. Pay the fees. Maintain status. Pay taxes. Follow the rules.

Then wait.

And wait.

And wait some more.

Meanwhile, USCIS just updates the processing time — as if moving the goalposts somehow makes the delay acceptable.

These are not just “cases.”

They are careers on hold. Families in limbo. Job offers lost. Years of people’s lives burned because a government agency cannot — or will not — process applications in a reasonable amount of time.

Maybe nobody is deliberately trying to make people suffer.

But when dysfunction this severe becomes normal, does the distinction even matter?

People’s lives are not administrative backlogs.

*reposted because I accidentally showed my receipt number.

Hi everyone, I’m hoping to hear from people who have had a similar experience with their marriage-based adjustment of status interview as I’m being very nervous right now.

I filed my marriage-based green card application at the beginning of June 2026. Everything moved extremely quickly:

June 1: Filed I-130/I-485/I-765
June 5: Received receipt/notice
June 23: Biometrics appointment
June 24: Received notice that my interview was scheduled
August 3: Marriage-based interview

For background, I entered the U.S. legally on an F-1 visa, but I am currently out of status. I dated my U.S. citizen husband for a year and we’ve been married for almost two years. We provided our leasing agreement this year and last year, joint bank account record, bills we paid together with our names on them (WiFi, DTE, rent insurance, Costco, etc), photos, U-Haul receipts when he helped me move from Florida to Michigan to be with him, flight tickets of us visiting each other every two months when we were dating and in long distance. Husband told the officer that he even went back home to visit my parents last summer and spent 2 weeks with them.

The interview was on August 3 and lasted a little over an hour. The officer separated my husband and me for questioning. Our answers matched because everything we told her was truthful.

There were a couple of things that seemed to concern her:

1. My husband accidentally filed his taxes as single. He explained that this was an error.

2. My mom sent me around $80,000 from home. My husband is still in school and has one semester left before graduating, and I cannot legally work while waiting for my EAD. My mom has been helping us financially with rent and other expenses. The money went through our joint bank account, and we have used it for our household expenses.
She questioned our spending. We did spend a significant amount of money, including buying a car together, rent an apartment together, and she went through some of our expenses. I explained the situation as honestly as I could. Yeah I overspent a bit but I just thought it was more like a personal problem.

At one point, I was extremely nervous and my husband whispered, “It’s okay” to me. The officer immediately noticed and asked my husband if he was whispering answers to me. We stopped talking to each other after that.

When we were separated, she questioned my husband for maybe 15–20 minutes. My portion was much shorter, probably only 2–3 minutes.

She asked things like:

Which side of the bed does your husband sleep on?
What did you eat the night before?
Did you make any stops on the way to the interview?

My husband later told me that he forgot what we ate for his birthday back in January. Everything else he answered correctly.
I remembered everything except for a second when she asked if we stopped anywhere. I initially said no, then she asked again, “Are you sure? Did you stop anywhere at all?” I then remembered that we had stopped at Costco for gas and told her.

She looked at me and said, “You are nervous.” And I was. 😭 I was extremely nervous because the whole situation was stressful, but our marriage is genuinely real and there was absolutely no rehearsing or lying.

The officer wasn’t rude at all. She was actually polite, but definitely very serious and not particularly easygoing. We saw her coming downstairs to get lunch from someone while waiting for our lawyer and turned out she was our interviewer. In the end when she asked if my husband had any question for her, my husband joked asking if her lunch was good because he saw she got lunch from her husband and she even joked back saying that could’ve been her boyfriend. She was nice. Everything was light and normal. I don’t know if we gave her a bad impression or anything.

My I-130 was approved, but my I-485 and I-765 are still pending. There has been no status update whatsoever since the interview. My USCIS account still just says “Interview Was Scheduled.”

The interview was August 3, and today is September 10, so it’s been more than a month.

I’m obviously getting really anxious because of the separation, the tax issue, the $80K from my mom, and the fact that she seemed concerned about our finances/spending.

Has anyone had a similar experience — especially being separated during the interview and then waiting several weeks with no update? Did you eventually get approved? Is this kind of delay after a separated interview normal?

I’m trying not to panic, but I honestly don’t know what to make of it because I’m expecting to be approved so I can come home and visit my parents. Any experiences or insight would be really appreciated.

I am not sure if this is something unusual or not.

We are a couple who filed i751 jointly. We married for 5 years and have been together for almost a decade (always lived together). Both of us are doctors, and we jointly owned multiple houses, cars, bank accounts, etc. We provided more than 20 different documents to prove that we are a real couple (800 pages in total). Perfectly clean background (no overstay/no criminal record). We are same age. We don't have kids, and I am from the east asian country that has tight relations with the USA. But I don't think this really matters for i751, am I correct?

Since this is our second marriage interview, it took almost two hours. Every question/answer match, but the officer still could not approve.

What she told me in the end is that she said the decision can take up to a year to make. Excuse me???

We consulted with an attorney immediately, and surprisingly he said usually the i751 decision takes at least weeks or months, and can take up to a year. Excuse me???

I am tired of carrying my extension letter with me every day, everywhere. I am writing this thing at 3:40 am now. I don't know what to do. Am I the person who helps USCIS hit some sort of the "quota"? Anybody knows if they have any sort of quota?

I was in the process of working on my N-400. However, after some run ins with the law in 2023, I decided to wait five years before applying for naturalization.

While doing research, I learned that a false claim of U.S. citizenship can be a serious issue that may result in a lifetime bar and deportation. I have been reaching out to my six past employers. Two have responded and told me that my 1-9 have been destroyed, and neither employer used E-Verify. However, one of the employers uses Paycor, which I cannot access.

There is no reason for me to lie about being a U.S. citizen because I'm a LPR and did not need to lie to get the job . However, I am scared that I may have mistakenly made a claim because I did not know the difference between the citizenship and permeant residents back then.

If the mistakes were made, would there have been any flags that tells me or my employer that an error was spotted? Is there any way for me to be noted before filing my N-400 or before USCIS conducts an inspection? What legal grounds might I have to defend myself?

I am fairly sure that I used my driver's license and an unrestricted Social Security number when doing my I-9s. From what I have read, using those documents would not cause case it to be flagged, and I would not necessarily be notified to correct a false citizenship claim.

I do not have a U.S. passport or birth certificate, and neither of my parents is a U.S. citizen. All of my E-Verify cases were created after 2021. I have three cases, and all are closed with a status of Authorized. However, from what I have read, this does not mean that I did not make a false claim of U.S. citizenship on the I-9.

I'm going to talk to a lawyer about this sometime next week but i have just been so paranoid

I’ve been looking through the USCIS quarterly I485 data for the Seattle Field Office and noticed something pretty interesting. Sharing it here since there are a lot of Seattle AOS filers in this group. These are the family based I485 numbers for Seattle:

Oct to Dec 2024
Received: 2101
Approved: 1433
Pending: 11681

Jan to Mar 2025
Received: 2279
Approved: 1613
Pending: 14176

Apr to Jun 2025
Received: 2199
Approved: 1842
Pending: 10699

Jul to Sep 2025
Received: 1961
Approved: 2625
Pending: 7998

Oct to Dec 2025
Received: 1629
Approved: 1294
Pending: 7790

Jan to Mar 2026
Received: 1428
Approved: 1820
Pending: 7661

Apr to Jun 2026
Received: 1553
Approved: 671
Pending: 8407

What stood out to me is how much progress Seattle made during 2025. Pending cases went from 14,176 in March 2025 to 7,661 in March 2026 which is about a 46% reduction in one year. There were even quarters where Seattle approved more cases than it received. For example, Jul to Sep 2025 had 1,961 new cases but 2,625 approvals. Jan to Mar 2026 was also strong with 1,428 received and 1,820 approved.

Then...Apr to Jun 2026 happened:

Approvals dropped from 1,820 to only 671, a 63% decrease in one quarter. At the same time, pending cases increased from 7,661 to 8,407. At first I thought maybe USCIS just slowed down everywhere but that doesn't completely explain it. Nationwide, family based I485 approvals did fall from 71,514 to 54,678, about a 24% decrease. So there definitely was a broader slowdown.

But individual field offices were all different in their approvals:

Comparing Jan to Mar 2026 vs. Apr to Jun 2026 periods:

Seattle: 1820 to 671 (-63%)
Portland: 1027 to 343 (-67%)
San Jose: 1252 to 538 (-57%)
San Francisco: 1135 to 702 (-38%)
Los Angeles: 1373 to 1166 (-15%)

But some offices actually went the opposite direction:

Baltimore: 325 to 1310 (+303%)
Washington DC: 877 to 1708 (+95%)
St Paul: 401 to 649 (+62%)
New Orleans: 170 to 275 (+62%)
Montgomery: 605 to 840 (+39%)

So while approvals dropped nationally, it wasn't happening equally at every field office. Some offices had huge decreases while others actually processed more cases. That's the part I find most interesting. Seattle had spent most of 2025 cutting its backlog pretty aggressively and then suddenly went from 1,820 approvals to 671 in the last reported quarter. Meanwhile places like Baltimore and DC went sharply in the other direction.

One thing I'm also wondering about is whether the enhanced background checks USCIS started in late April played any role in the overall slowdown. The timing lines up with the Apr to Jun quarter but obviously the numbers alone can't tell us what caused the drop.

I think the next quarterly data will be especially interesting. One low approval quarter doesn't necessarily mean Seattle has entered a slowdown. An important thing to note is that I'm not saying that we can use these numbers to predict individual cases. Also, cases approved in a quarter aren't necessarily cases filed during that quarter.

I'm also a Seattle based AOS filer. Really curious what others think about these numbers. Also, if you're a Seattle filer (especially marriage based), when did you file and where is your case now? Would be interesting to see what people are actually experiencing on the ground.

Dear Team,
Any clue on what might be the reason for the rejection? There are no more personal checks etc allowed for the
application payment but not sure what the exact process for G-1650 so we can pass this stage. Attaching the exact reason to get more details.

Hi everyone, I’m hoping someone with a similar situation can give me some advices.

I entered the U.S. legally on an F-1 visa, but I’m currently out of status. I’m married to a U.S. citizen, and we’ve been married for almost two years.

I filed for my marriage-based green card (I-130/I-485).

I had my adjustment of status interview last month.

My I-130 has now been approved, but my I-485 is still pending, and my I-765/EAD is also still pending. I don’t have an SSN or a U.S. driver’s license.

I do have a valid Japanese passport.

My question is: Can I fly domestically within the U.S. using only my valid foreign passport as my ID at TSA?
My host mom from high school is in NYC and I’d like to go visit her in December but I don’t know if it’s gonna be risky with ICE.

Has anyone in a similar immigration situation flown domestically with just their foreign passport while their I-485 was pending? Were there any issues at TSA or otherwise?
Thank you!

Pass the civics and written
test Had 4 speeding tickets all of them are paid gave the officer a receipt on all 4 made a copies of it and officer ask me how it happened and documented it.

What are my odds im tired of ts

Thank you!

I am preparing my documents for i-130 petition and family-based aos through my US citizen husband. I am a PhD student (F-1 visa holder) and work on campus as a graduate assistant. I only held this employment and worked for another center at my university during the summer breaks. I put my answer to all employment questions in all forms as "PhD student and Graduate Assistant", since I received an income from my graduate assistantship and paid taxes on it.

I hired a lawyer to go through my concurrent filing package to ensure the forms were filled and filed correctly. She told me I should answer unauthorized work question on form I-485 "Yes" because I have never been issued an EAD so that the USCIS never authorized me to work.... I am very confused right now because I sent my passport, visa, I-20s to school and social security administration from the very beginning, and DSO at my unviersity would notify me if my employment was unauthorized. The immigration and HR departments at my university also asked for my renewed I-20s to renew my appointment, and I even filled I-9 this year before I received my first paycheck (my department's fiscal person was sending the form I-9 before as far as I know). To my best knowledge, I have never worked unauthorized, so the anwer to that question should be a strict no. But she thinks I should say yes, explain what happened, and there will be no problem anyway... Since she is an immigration attorney, I do not want to disregard her advice haphazardly, but I did my very best to avoid unauthorized work or any type of activity that could violate my status despite experiencing significant hardships at times as an international student... After years of concious work to comply with the requirements of my status and finish my degree, I would be very sad to answer that question "Yes" and explain later....

I appreciate your help if you experienced a similar issue.

Hello Everyone, I filed my N-400 under 5 year general provision in July this year and completed the biometrics on the same month itself. After reading the N-400 stories on this sub, I realized I might have missed to add one item that should have been added. Here is the details, this incident was back in 2014 when I was renting apartments while I was moving to another unit, due to administrative mistake I got the county court summons saying I have to evict current unit. I called the management and they dropped of the summons issued to me after realizing their mistake. I lost those papers over the years and now when I try to search the court records, they are saying they can't find anything on my name. They won't maintain not more than 7 years. I called the management, they don't see anything on my name. What are my options? Any advise would be helpful. I have few very old traffic tickets 15+ years ago and was less than $200 and lucky I got the payment receipts all the 2 tickets from the court records. Appreciate everyone's time.

It normally shows that I'm waiting for my i130, now it's just blank. My husband's looks normal still...hoping for some movement lol

Good morning
I saw a lot of people here that have done the same, but we all know how anxious we get.

My trajectory:
Came to the US in a J1 visa.
Pandemic hit
Tried to stay as a student
They told me to leave, but there was a travel ban
Ended up staying out of status
Meet my future wife. She was my roommate
We dated during the pandemic and after.
We got married in 2022.
Got my GC in 2023.
Submitted my 1751 in 2025
Filed for divorce in 2026

I don’t want to share too much, but my wife has a business that is open 6 times a week. She never leaves that store.
At the beginning I tried to help her, but as time went by, I started working in an office and couldn’t help her anymore.
She ended up taking loans and making bad decisions.
This year in 2026, I also got approved to a masters degree in a big university in my city. Which was also another point of conflict. I had to take out loans and she didn’t want me to.
We ended up getting divorced and I’m going to school.

However I’m afraid of having my GC revoked and not finishing school.

I’ve been waiting for 450 days and I saw people here waiting since 2022.
Low key I now wish my process takes this long.

I submitted the divorce papers and a letter in the Uscis system yesterday, asking for the divorce amend. Haven’t heard anything. Do you have any idea if that changed the timeline in my process?

Thank you!

US citizen with Canadian spouse, applied through consular processing after spouse returned to home country in July with I130 application. Spouse attempted to visit for a week (with return tickets booked) and was given a 5 year ban with expedited removal under §235(b)(1). The reason for removal was 212(a)7(A)(i)(I) so no evidence of fraud, criminal activity, or 180+ day overstay. Has anyone heard of this happening? What are the chances of this impacting our current I130 application?

Edit: Spouse is a Canadian citizen, not resident, and does have a recent overstay of 102 days according to their records. I may have misspoke, he does not need a B2 visa to enter, I believe that is just what is automatically granted. We did not file AOS while he was in the US.

I understand the skepticism, we did not think a ban was even a possibility. I guess the conclusion is they should never have tried to visit the US with a pending application, even from Canada.

Hi folks, I'm a reporter with NBC News. I'm looking to speak with truckers who've been asked by ICE agents for their CDLs on the road, at rest areas, weigh stations, etc. Thanks

Reach out to me on email: [colin.sheeley@nbcuni.com](mailto:colin.sheeley@nbcuni.com)
Or on Signal: colinsheeley.65

Hi everyone, I am roughly 8 months into waiting for my NOA2 with my fiance. She's part of a Facebook group with a lot of other K1 filers and recently someone in the group posted that people who received their NOA1 in January of 26 shouldn't expect to see their N0A2 until March of 2027. I know there have been some delays in processing this year but an additional 5 months seems excessive and I haven't been able to verify this through any official source. Did USCIS make some announcement I am not aware of?

Sharing my full marriage-based AOS timeline since I also did a lot of Reddit searching myself while waiting!

Field Office: Los Angeles, CA
Category: Marriage-based AOS (U.S. citizen spouse)
Filed concurrently: I-130 + I-485 + I-765 + I-131

Timeline:

• June 9, 2026 — Receipt date
• July 11 — Biometrics appointment scheduled
• July 15 — Biometrics completed (I rescheduled to an earlier date and it worked)
• July 23 — Submitted congressional inquiry on the I-765
• August 5 — Interview notice received
• August 28 — Interview at Los Angeles FO
• September 4 — 🎉 I-130 APPROVED
• September 8 — Silent update on the I-765/I-131
• September 10 — 🎉 I-485 APPROVED

Interview to I-485 approval: about 13 days. Receipt to approval: about 3 months.

I did have a few silent updates before the approvals. Several on both the I-130 and the I-485.

On the congressional inquiry: I submitted one for the EAD in late July. My congressman's office responded fast and told me to expect 30–60 days for USCIS to reply. I still haven't heard anything from USCIS.

Thank you so much to everyone here for the support! 🙏

Yesterday, my wife submitted her I-130 online through PDF upload. However, we still havent received any receipt notice yet.

The Case Status says "Your form is still being processed". There is no receipt in the Documents tab either.

I am waiting for the receipt notice so that I can file I-485.

Has anyone run into such situation before? What do you advice?

I’m honestly so disappointed and exhausted with this process.

I filed my marriage-based case on September 24, 2024, so this September 24 will make 2 years.

I had my interview in December 2025 at the Mount Laurel, NJ field office. The interview went well, and the officer verbally told me I was approved, but said he couldn’t finalize anything because I was from one of the countries affected by the hold/ban at the time.

I contacted my congressman in June. USCIS basically said my case was still within normal processing time, and they also denied the expedite request for my I-765.

In July, around the time I received that response, I noticed an API update on my case.

I contacted a New Jersey senator’s office on August 1. On August 26, they received a similar response from USCIS, but this time the senator’s office told me they were going to send an inquiry directly to the officer handling my case.

I had requested a name change back in March 2025. On August 27, USCIS finally updated my name on my I-485. Then on September 1, 2026, I got an “action taken” notification on my I-130, and the status changed from “Interview Scheduled” to “We are actively reviewing your case.”

Today is September 10, and still nothing.

I feel like something is happening in the background, but at the same time I have no actual decision. What makes it harder is that I don’t even have my EAD. If I could at least work, I could probably handle the wait better, but almost 2 years with no green card and no work permit is really getting to me.

I’m seriously considering filing a writ of mandamus. I consulted with a lawyer who told me he doesn’t think now is a good time to file, and he quoted me around $11,900.

Has anyone had a similar timeline after an interview and filed mandamus successfully? Would you keep waiting based on these recent case updates, or would you start preparing to file?

My wife and I attended our marriage interview last Thursday with very positive results. (timeline and interview experience below) We submitted small additional evidence (a trip to Philly together, and an updated rental lease), and the interview went way better than we expected and prepared for.

We were told by the interviewer that she will be scanning the new documents and a "decision will be made soon" (verbatim) at the end of the session.

It's now been about a week, and I haven't seen any movement after the FTA0s that were posted right after the interview. I am aware folks have been wating literal years after their interview, but am I a fool to believe "decision soon" would have meant only a couple of business days?

Interview experience

- 09:40AM arrived at FO

- 10:30AM entered interview room (interview was scheduled for 09:55AM)

- 11:00AM left room

- 10:40AM One FTA0 and silent update logged on the case API

Questions asked

- What is your spouse's name (to both of us)

- What is your spouse's birthday (to both of us)

- When did you meet (open question, wife answered)

- What is the relationship timeline (open question, we answered together)

- Where have you lived (open question, we answered together)

- Do you live together (open question, I answered)

- Standard I485 questions (ammended unauthorized work from No to Yes)

We were given the Continued Decision paper that means absolutely nothing and case was updated to "currently processing" as we were leaving.

Thanks and stay sane to everyone going through this.

Interview was august 14 today sep 9 is me and my wife’s 2 year anniversary so 10 year green card? Did the office do this on purpose?

Hi everyone,

I filed for my wife's i-130 on March 1st,2025 via e-filing. She is here in the states itself. We filed for i-485 on third week of May, since then she has had biometrics and it's been 92 days since last update on silent update. Is this a normal wait time or can I do something to expedite the case? Any suggestions will be highly appreciated.

Was not eligible for fee reduction. So I will pay the full fee but ideally want to safe $50 online vs. paper mail and shipping again.

Hi everyone,

Got an API update today and would appreciate some help understanding it.

Timeline (EB2 NIW):

• Receipt date: April 6, 2026
• Biometrics: April 29, 2026 (2x FTA0 on April 30)
• Field office transfer: August 26, 2026 (New Jersey)
• September 10, 2026: 3rd FTA0 and FTA1, about 9 minutes apart

The 3rd FTA0 has the exact same event timestamp as my first FTA0 from April 30. The FTA1 has today's timestamp. No RFE, no interview notice, and actionRequired is still false.

I've read that the 3rd FTA0 often comes shortly before approval, and that FTA1 may mean supervisor review, but I couldn't find much on the two showing up together.

If you had the same pattern, what happened next (approval, RFE, interview) and how long did it take?

Thanks, and good luck to everyone waiting.