I-539 Medians Keep Falling, but the Backlog Has Grown 355% in 81 Days

This week's 122-day median (the 50th percentile, or the point at which half of approved cases finished faster and half slower) ticked up 4 days from last week's 118. That single-week move is noise against a broader backdrop: the 8-week regression slope of -5.2 days per week, with an R² of 0.50, describes a real downward direction. At the June 8 peak of 168 days, the interquartile range (the spread between the 25th percentile, p25, and the 75th percentile, p75) stretched from 121 to 206 days. This week's band narrows to 101 to 177 days, a meaningful compression.

The active pending backlog tells a different story. As of July 27, 102,637 cases remained active across all filing-month groups, up from roughly 22,500 on May 7: a 355% rise over 81 days. The February 2026 filing-month group accounts for 40,218 of those active cases. That group filed during a month when USCIS received 46,188 applications, compared to roughly 8,000 in most other recent months. That volume has not cleared, and it now forms the structural weight behind the surface trend.

The uneven_centers anomaly flag fired this week with a value of 214.89, reflecting the 228-day spread between the fastest and slowest centers. SRC (Texas Service Center) cleared cases at a median of 33 days across 1,598 approvals, with a slope of -3.2 days per week and R² of 0.39, a moderate downward trend. YSC came in at 169 days across 128 approvals, with the steepest slope of any center at -6.0 days per week (R² 0.35). LIN (Nebraska Service Center) processed 91 cases at 159 days, with a slope of +0.8 days per week and R² of 0.05, essentially flat. WAC (California Service Center, the USCIS facility in Laguna Niguel, CA) posted 261 days across 723 approvals; its slope of -1.5 days per week with R² of 0.03 is too weak to indicate a real direction. EAC cleared 261 cases at a median of 248 days, and it is the center to watch: its slope of +4.7 days per week carries an R² of 0.43, the only center combining a rising trend with a fit strong enough to call consistent. Case mix differs across centers and these numbers are not directly comparable as measures of center performance.

The rfe_fast anomaly flag fired this week: cases that received a Request for Evidence (RFE, USCIS's standard follow-up letter asking for missing documents) and submitted a response are closing at a median of 21 days, compared to 127 days for cases that proceeded without any RFE at all. This pattern is consistent with a batch of RFE-response cases that entered the queue close together and cleared simultaneously. It does not mean that receiving an RFE speeds up a case in general. The data brief does not identify a specific mechanism, and a single week is not enough to confirm any underlying cause.

For the much larger share of pending applicants, the real queue sits at 'Case Was Received.' That status accounts for 57.2% of all active cases, some 74,771 cases in the last 30 days, with a median of 136 days at that stage and a case-level spread from 92 days at the 25th percentile to 185 days at the 75th percentile (Stage durations, 30-day raw data). Another 14% of active cases are at 'Case Transferred And New Office Has Jurisdiction,' with a median of only 20 days at that status across 18,291 cases, suggesting that recently transferred cases may be moving through more quickly. For most applicants, the 136-day median at 'Received' is the structural wait they are experiencing.

For most pending applicants, the queue starts and largely stays at 'Case Was Received,' where the typical wait runs from 92 to 185 days before anything else happens.