Bakken Law has focused solely on immigration and naturalization law since its establishment in 1996. During this entire time, USCIS processing times for immigrant and nonimmigrant petitions and applications have fluctuated wildly. Now, though, the delays and unpredictable processing times are a result of additional factors beyond the usual issues of chronic underfunding, massive backlogs, and an increasingly complex regulatory environment. Increased Requests for Evidence (RFEs), mandatory interviews that were previously waived, and heightened scrutiny of petitions all add time to individual cases.
Recent policy changes have added significant new layers of delay. In early December 2025, among other actions, USCIS paused benefit requests for individuals from countries listed in the June 2025 travel ban and initiated re-review of already-approved benefits for nationals of those countries who entered the U.S. on or after January 20, 2021. Separately, on December 4, 2025, USCIS reduced the maximum validity period for certain Employment Authorization Documents from five years to just 18 months for initial and renewal EADs, a change that will substantially increase the volume of renewal filings over time. On January 1, 2026, USCIS further expanded the adjudication hold by pausing all benefit requests filed by or on behalf of nationals of countries added to the travel ban under Presidential Proclamation 10998 and expanded the re-review trigger to include any approval issued on or after January 20, 2021. Common petition and application types such as Form I-129, Form I-140, Form I-539, Form I-485, and Form I-765 (covering H-1Bs, TNs, L-1s, O-1s, among others, as well as green card applications, changes of status, and employment authorization) are affected with cases allowed to proceed only up to, but not including, final adjudication. The practical effect of these overlapping holds and re-review mandates is that even applications that are otherwise fully approvable, including those where an in-person interview has been completed, may sit unresolved for many months with no clear timeline for when the holds will be lifted. In practice, these recent changes mean that cases that may have taken 6-18 months in the past may take two to three years or even longer.