I-131 Travel Document Waits Hit 303 Days, Nearly Triple Last Year's Pace

I-131 travel document cases took a median of 303 days from last reported status to approval in the week of Aug 24, 2026, based on 2,007 approved cases. The same week a year earlier, with a sample of 82 cases, the median was 120 days. That 183-day gap represents a 153% year-over-year increase. The week-over-week move was itself notable: 303 days against 283 days the prior week, a 20-day rise in a single week. These figures combine Advance Parole, Reentry Permit, and Refugee Travel Document cases, which process at substantially different speeds, so the aggregate median reflects whichever type dominated approvals this week.

Over the last 12 weeks, the median has ranged from 153 days (weeks of Jun 29 and Jul 6) to this week's 303 days, with a 12-week trailing average of 222 days. The pattern is not uniform: through mid-June, medians sat in the 150-to-190-day range. Beginning with the week of Jul 13, when the reading rose to 285 days, the series has not retreated below 216 days. That step-change in late July, roughly 100 days above the early-June readings, appears to follow a shift in the composition or routing of approved cases rather than a single-week anomaly, though the data brief does not identify the precise mechanism.

The 8-week linear regression slope, a measure of how many days the median is adding (or shedding) each week on average, stands at +12.3 days per week. In plain terms: if you drew the straightest line through the last eight weekly readings, each step to the right would add about 12 days. Across eight weeks, that slope accumulates to roughly 98 additional days. The R² of the fit is 0.37, which means the linear model explains only about 37% of the week-to-week variation. The trend is upward, but individual weeks can land well above or below the regression line, which is why the forecast band is wide.

A trend line adding 12 days every week, even with a wide forecast band, is the clearest signal in the data for applicants tracking their place in the queue.

LIN (the Nebraska Service Center) handled 1,198 cases this week, about 60% of all approvals, and posted a median of 409 days. IOE, which processes e-filed cases, handled 625 cases and posted 102 days. WAC (the California Service Center) sits at 173 days across 87 cases. SRC (Texas) shows 509 days but with only 54 cases; its 8-week slope of -5.1 days per week and an R² of 1.00 suggest improvement there, though the sample is too thin to draw firm conclusions. MSC (the National Benefits Center in Lee's Summit, MO) posts 280 days across 43 cases. The uneven-centers anomaly flag fired this week with a value of 282.22, reflecting the spread across channels. Because LIN accounts for the majority of approvals, its 409-day median pulls the overall 303-day aggregate substantially upward; the case mix differs across centers, so these figures are not directly comparable as a performance ranking.

Cases routed through IOE are clearing in roughly one-quarter the time of paper-filed cases at LIN (102 days versus 409 days). Center routing is assigned by USCIS based on form type and filing method and is not something applicants can select after submission. Whether IOE's faster pace reflects a different document-type mix, lighter volume, or operational differences is not distinguishable in the current data.