Green Card Gridlock: What Employers and Immigrants Need to Know

By: Hannah Welbourn

Concerning the growing delays for green card processing, the Cato Institute stated, “America will lose the global talent competition when other countries grant green cards in a matter of a few weeks or months, not years.”

1,256 days (or 3.44 years) was the average processing time in Q2 of 2025. Since 2016, the U.S. government has added an average of 2.8 years to green card processing, and paying the $2,805 premium fee only drops the average wait time to 2.8 years.

These delays affect hundreds of thousands of households in the U.S. This is on top of the extensive backlog of green card cap slots, where if a candidate’s application is approved, they may have to wait for a visa number slot to become available before they receive their green card. These two obstacles create a multi-layered, multi-year backlog of 11.3 million total immigration applications USCIS must process.

What’s causing these delays?

The causes of these are also multi-layered. They include:

1. I-90 form processing delays – The process for replacing or renewing a green card has jumped from roughly 1 month in 2024 to 8 months in 2025. Green card holders must fill out the I-90 every 10 years to renew their status (or whenever their green card is misplaced or damaged). And while USCIS extended the validity of green cards by 36 months in 2024, they received an increase of almost 100,000 I-90 forms in Q1 of 2025 compared to Q4 2024.
2. Prefiling stage uncertainties – As employers and attorneys gather candidates’ academic credentials, employer-pay evidence, and experience letters (including job duties and tenure at previous organizations), prior employers often have little incentive to maintain up-to-date records on these candidates. This can lengthen the prefiling process and create unnecessary uncertainties.
3. Prevailing wage determination delays and U.S. recruitment requirements. – The time it takes for the Department of Labor to issue a prevailing wage determination (to assign a specific occupational classification, skill level, and area code) has also increased. What used to take roughly three months in 2016 has more-than doubled to an average of 6.1 months in 2025. Additionally, the DOL requires employers to advertise to U.S. workers who apply with the basic criteria for the role. This period has also slightly delayed processing times since 2016. Once the employer deems no U.S. worker meets the criteria, they seek a labor certification from the DOL. What, on average, took approximately 6 months (180 days) to process in 2016 now takes around 1.3 years (483 days).
4. Employer petition processing delays – After dealing with the DOL, employers must then petition the Department of Homeland Security to confirm that (1) the candidate is qualified for sponsorship and (2) the employer has the ability to pay the DOL wage determination. This is where the employer can pay the premium fee to expedite the waiting period to approximately 15 days. Without this fee, it usually takes 234 days (7.7 months) in 2025, whereas in 2016, it only took 180 days (6.6 months) on average.
5. Green card application and cap delays – Once the employer petition is approved, there still exists the hurdle of the green card cap. Here, the employee must wait for a cap number to become available under annual limits. Additionally, the applicant must submit an I-485 to transition from a temporary visa status (e.g., H1-B) to permanent residence. In 2016, wait times typically stood around 165 days (5.5 months). In 2025, this took 210 days (6.9 months) on average.

On top of this and the unknown wait times for green card cap slots for specific candidates (i.e., from India, China, or the Phillipines, typically), the total employer-sponsored processing backlogs at the DOL and the DHS have more than doubled since 2016, exceeding 500,000 pending cases at the end of FY 2025 Q2.

What are the effects of these delays?

With these delays, candidates must go through a temporary H1-B visa status in order to have a chance at permanent residency. According to the Cato Institute, over 90 percent of employer-sponsored immigrants going through the labor certification process must already be in the United States to obtain employer sponsorship. This further lengthens the path to permanent residency when you factor in the time it takes to obtain a temporary visa status.

These delays can have a tolling effect on the individual candidates. Lengthened delays and processing times create stress, uncertainty, and career limitations for candidates, while employers wonder about the future of their employees.

On a national level, these delays also create hurdles for the United States to remain competitive on a global scale. Green card delays can risk losing top talent for American industries and stifle the ability to fill key skill gaps. This reverse brain drain can siphon top minds to other countries.

What can we do about it? 

While we can’t change USCIS understaffing or immigration category suspensions, we can make sure nothing on your end slows a case down further. We’re proud to partner with law firms across the country, helping them keep cases clean, compliant, and moving forward (even in the most complex scenarios).

Need a quote or sample evaluation? Want to pre-schedule ads based on filing timelines? We’re here to help.