While President Trump has kept the spotlight on illegal immigration, legal immigration has also been disrupted—through policy changes and bureaucratic slowdowns. At the same time, delayed data releases have obscured how federal agencies are currently operating, limiting public insight. Below, I analyze the most recent data available, current as of October 30th, 2026.
Contents
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
- Subset of processing data for August 2026
- All forms processing data for April through June 2026
- Median processing times through August 30, 2026
- Consular wait times as of October 21, 2026
- IV and NIV monthly visa issuances for February 2026
- PERM Processing Times as of October 5, 2026
Immigration and Customs Enforcement
- International student records through October 2026
National Travel and Tourism Office
- Trends in overseas visitors through September 2026
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) oversees the administration of legal immigration by adjudicating applications and petitions for benefits such as work authorization, citizenship, and legal permanent residence (green card status).
Comprehensive processing data for all USCIS forms is only available through June, but a smaller dataset provides updated details through August.
Key takeaways from the August 2026 USCIS processing data:
- In August 2026, USCIS received 33 percent fewer forms among the reported form types compared to the year prior. Despite the decreased workload, USCIS completed 52 percent fewer cases among these types.
- Most strikingly, USCIS completed just 19,562 naturalization cases in August 2026, down from 78,923 a year prior. From January 2026 to August 2026, USCIS completed an average of just 26,138 naturalization cases per month. By comparison, from January to August of 2025, USCIS completed an average of 85,154 naturalization cases per month.
- Between August 2025 and August 2026, the share of naturalization completions that were denials more than doubled from 9 percent in August 2025 to more than 21 percent in August 2026.
- The number of naturalization applications that have been pending for over six months increased by 351 percent between August 2025 and August 2026.
- USCIS issued 343 percent more denials for Petitions to Remove Conditions on Residence in August 2026 compared to August 2025.
Note: Some USCIS processing statistics may have been impacted by PM 602-0192 or PM 602-0194. However, court orders vacated these memos in June 2026. They were further enjoined in August 2026.
For all USCIS forms, processing data is only currently available through the third quarter of fiscal year 2026, or April through June 2026.
Key takeaways from the FY2026 Q3 USCIS data:
- USCIS set another new record with over 12.8 million pending cases at the end of FY2026 Q3. The pending caseload has ballooned in spite of a 34 percent decrease in incoming forms compared to the same quarter last year.
- This is because USCIS completed less than 1.6 million cases in Q3, a 41 percent decrease compared to the year prior.
- The growth in pending cases was driven primarily by cases within the government’s control. The net backlog, or backlogged cases within the government’s control, grew by 43 percent between FY2025 Q3 and FY2026 Q3, surpassing a startling 7.7 million cases in FY2026 Q3.
- The frontlog (unopened cases received by USCIS) numbered 11,000 cases at the end of FY2026 Q3. This is a significant improvement over the same time last year when the frontlog was over 60,000.
- The active DACA population dropped by over 18,000 individuals between Q2 and Q3. Compared to FY2025 Q3, there were nearly 80,000 fewer active DACA recipients in FY2026 Q3.
- The processing times for DACA-based work authorization applications increased by 356 percent between FY2025 Q3 and FY2026 Q3.
Real-time USCIS processing data isn’t easily accessible in aggregate, but annual median processing times still offer valuable insight into broader trends.
Key takeaways from the median processing times:
- Median processing times have generally increased or stayed approximately the same since last reporting.
- At the end of FY2025, the median processing time for a work authorization application based on a pending green card application was 2.2 months. As of August 30, 2026, the FY2026 median time was 6.4 months, or a 191 percent increase.
- At the end of FY2025, the median processing time for the petition a U.S. citizen would use to adopt a foreign-born orphan was 13.8 months. As of August 30, 2026, the FY2026 median time was 19.2 months, or a 39 percent increase.
- At the end of FY2025, the median processing time for an asylee relative petition was 10.9 months. As of August 30, 2026, the FY2026 median time was 24.1 months, or a 121 percent increase.
- At the end of FY2025, the median processing time for a DACA renewal was 0.5 months. As of August 30, 2026, the FY2026 median time was 3.7 months, or a 640 percent increase.
Department of State
The Department of State (DOS) issues visas to foreign nationals abroad, leveraging interviews and other vetting tools to protect the integrity and security of legal immigration.
Key takeaways from consular wait times:
- Consular wait times have fluctuated sharply in recent months as new vetting procedures—such as social media reviews and duplicative interview requirements—have taken effect. While some posts have managed to lower wait times in spite of these changes, other locations have seen steep increases in estimated wait times.
- Notes regarding data consistencies: Between January 2025 and April 2025, the Department of State consular wait time data changed formats. Data that was once reported in days is now published only in rounded months. For consistency, January 2025 figures have been converted into approximate months to allow comparison. Additionally, in September 2025, the Department of State began labeling any value less than 0.5 as “<0.5,” rather than providing the specific value or rounding down.
Key takeaways from the consular visa issuance statistics
- U.S. consulates issued 26% fewer nonimmigrant visas in February 2026 than in February 2025.
- Compared to February 2025, consulates issued 74 percent fewer H-1B visas for specialty occupation workers in February 2026. Similarly, consulates issued 81 percent fewer H-4 visas for H-1B spouses and children in February 2026.
- Compared to the year prior, consulates issued 80 percent fewer H-2B visas for seasonal, non-agricultural workers in February 2026.
- U.S. consulates issued 48% fewer immigrant visas in February 2026 than in February 2025.
- In absolute terms, U.S. consulates issued 24,575 fewer immigrant visas in February 2026 compared to February 2025, with diversity visas only accounting for 4,140 of those visas.
- By magnitude, the largest drop was seen among parents of U.S. citizens who were issued nearly 6,000 fewer immigrant visas in February 2026 compared to the year prior.
Department of Labor
The Department of Labor (DOL) oversees multiple labor certification and prevailing wage processes that were designed to protect American workers and uphold minimum standards for the employment of foreign nationals sponsored on employment visas.
Key takeaways from the PERM processing times
- Following record highs, PERM processing times have reported a new low not seen since 2023.
- As of October 5, 2026, PERM processing times are reported at 336 days, an impressive improvement over the 501 days reported at the end of May.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement
Beyond leading the interior enforcement efforts, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) also administers SEVIS, (the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System used by international students and cultural exchange visitors).
Key takeaways from the SEVIS records
- Latest data continues to reflect year-over-year declines in active SEVIS records.
- As of October 2026, there were over 90,000fewer active international student records overall and over 62,000 fewer STEM-enrolled international student records compared to October 2025. Compared to October 2024, the drop in overall SEVIS records surpasses 101,000.
- September 2026 marked the single largest year-over-year drop in active international student records since the Trump administration took office. Compared to September 2025, there were over 100,000 fewer international student records and over 64,000 fewer STEM-enrolled international student records.
National Travel and Tourism Office
The National Travel and Tourism Office, part of the International Trade Administration, tracks data on international travel to and from the United States.
Key takeaways from the overseas visitor numbers
- Continuing recent trends, overseas visitor numbers continued to show consistent year-over-year decreases.
- August 2026 showed a particularly stark decrease in overseas visitors compared to the year prior with August 2026 recording 413,639 fewer overseas visitors than the year prior.
- In the first nine months of 2026, the U.S. received over 1.4 million fewer overseas visitors than in the first nine months of 2025.
- The International Trade Administration that publishes this data says that every 40 international visits supports 1 U.S. job. At that rate, the U.S. could have missed out on over 36,200 American jobs thus far in 2026 as a result of tourism declines.
ARCHIVE: Previous updates to the “Legal immigration in numbers” series are available for download here.
