Key Highlights
The United States is experiencing a rising immigration issue because family-based green card applications now take excessively long to process. American families must now endure procedural waiting times between two and three years which once required just several months to complete but have significantly extended until today. The prolonged green card processing times stem from three major reasons including post-Trump policy deacceleration and reduced staffing and intensified application assessment at the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). The condition encountered by Indian applicants stands as the most severe among all immigrant groups within the United States.
Why Are Green Card Delays Increasing?
Multiple concurrent factors have brought family-based green card applications to their most extensive backlog in recorded history. Immigration attorneys have recognised multiple factors that have caused the slowdown.
Also Read: The Rise of 'Invest and Migrate': Rich Indians' Path to Global Citizenship
1. Policy Changes
The immigration policies enforced by the Trump administration continue to delay application processing durations during this period. For instance:
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The visa interview waiver program now needs people to appear in person for greater numbers of interviews.
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These past attempts to decrease family-based immigration have not succeeded, yet they have introduced systematic changes that affect processing system priorities.
2. Staffing Shortages
The USCIS faces staffing shortages because of both hiring freezers and reduced budgets implemented by the agency. The insufficient staffing levels force the system to process regular applications more slowly.
3. Increased Scrutiny
Every application faces intensified review processes, which now include social media investigations, modified forms, and elevated filing prices, which started in March 2025. Additionally:
Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) expanded its operations, which increased home investigations and marriage-based application investigations.
Impact on Families
Delayed immigration processing procedures have created substantial difficulties for families who need to bring their relatives to the United States or handle immigration status regularization.
Case Examples
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An Indian-American attorney who married a US military veteran cancelled her trip due to extended delays in her citizenship application process.
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When an Indian-American man lost his father during the waiting period of his green card application the widowed wife became the only remaining eligible person to proceed with the process.
Out-of-Status Immigrants
The immigration condition becomes unstable for all immigrants who maintain legal entry status but exceed visa limits or break agreed terms of stay. The federal court issued a November 2024 ruling that disapproved of President Biden's "Keeping Families Together" program thus removing the option for immigrants to stay in the United States during their residency applications. Approximately half a million immigrant individuals remain in danger of deportation based on a recent federal decision.
Delays by Category
Processing times vary depending on the type of green card application:
Family-Based Green Cards
The current processing times for spouse and parent applications by immediate relatives of U.S. citizens reach three years or longer than what was seen before Trump took office when processing occurred in under one year. This marks a substantial delay increase.12
Employment-Based Green Cards
The US Citizenship and Immigration Services experiences prolonged delays for family-based green card applications because of excessive applications from China and India in employment-based categories, specifically EB-5 visa programs37. For example:
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The EB-5 Final Action Dates for Indian applicants experienced a two-year-and-a-half delay during April 2025.
Also Read: USCIS Reverts to Binary Gender Options on Immigration Forms
Geographic Hotspots
The processing delays at selected US embassies and consulates across international locations differ from one another.
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Islamabad, Lagos, Nairobi, and Manila rank among the worst for interview scheduling delays.
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US immigration applicants who want to adjust their status domestically encounter delays because of the reimplemented requirement for marriage-based green card interviews.
Proposed Solutions
Experts in immigration have developed various options to deal with the increasing backlog:
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USCIS must relieve its staffing constraints while dedicating increased staff to process family-based applications.
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The policy initiative "Keeping Families Together" should be reinstalled to protect out-of-status immigrants from deportation risks.
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New technology together with modernisation efforts, should be utilised to transform slow vetting processes while implementing digital systems for higher efficiency.
Conclusion
The United States immigration system faces core operational issues which become worse due to policy stagnation, insufficient staff, and increased visa requests. The extended delays at the green card application process cause families crossing borders or plagued by legal uncertainties to experience both bureaucratic inefficiencies and emotional distress.
Immigration agencies, along with policymakers, need to make sustained efforts to achieve meaningful changes in order to advance proposed solutions. Numerous applicants continue to face an expanding waiting period which diminishes their potential future as American citizens.
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