Your case isn't lost. It's in a queue of 1.4 million.
It's not your fault, and you're not alone. This is happening to 1.4 million people — and here are the official numbers that prove it.
In twelve years 8.9 million applications came in. Out went 8.0 million.
Every one of those 891 thousand is a person waiting: a mom, a husband, someone with an expired work permit. The shortfall isn't a one-year accident — it piled up quarter after quarter. Here's what that looks like:
Every quarter more cases come in than go out.
Fifty quarters of data. When the purple line (what comes in) runs above the green one (what gets resolved), the queue grows. Watch the scissors open up from 2023 on.
See the data behind this chart (table by fiscal year)
From 365 thousand to 1.4 million: +294%.
See the data behind this chart (table by fiscal year)
It came down once: in FY2019 the queue hit its recent low — 572,501. Growth isn't a law of nature. It's capacity.
April 2020: the system shut down.
Recovery took six quarters. The queue it left behind never fully recovered.
Only two good years in twelve.
The clearance ratio is simple: cases completed ÷ cases coming in. Above 1.00 the queue shrinks; below it, the queue grows. Only FY2019 (1.19) and FY2022 (1.03) closed in the black. FY2026 is running at 0.59: for every 10 cases that come in, fewer than 6 get resolved.
The humanitarian queue grew +697%.
See the data behind this chart (table by fiscal year)
Asylum, refugee status, VAWA, U and T visas. In FY2025 alone 409,058 cases came in and 184,356 were resolved — 2.2 came in for every one closed.
It peaked in FY2021 Q3 (288,677) and today it's at 215,177, with the lowest denial rate of them all: 7.0%.
Same form. The wait depends on where you live.
"Months of queue" measures each office's load: how many months it would take to empty its queue at the current pace. It's not your individual processing time — but it shows how unequal the system is.
The country's six longest queues are all in Florida.
Denials vary too: over the last 12 months, San Jose denied 3.4% of the cases it decided; Miami, 13.9% — four times more, for the exact same filing.
Find your office.
"Months of queue" = pending ÷ monthly resolution pace (last 4 quarters with data). It measures the office's load, not your individual timeline: your case depends on the category, your priority date and the visa bulletin.
You've seen the big picture. Now track your case.
Inmigreat Case Tracker tells you every time USCIS moves your case, in plain English and in real time. We're one of the few developers certified with the official USCIS API.
