I-539 Median Jumps 14 Days, But Sits Below Last Year's Pace
Week 36's 121-day read triggered an outlier flag at z=2.71 against the prior 4-week trailing mean, yet the same measure ran 5 days higher in the same week a year ago, placing this week's reading in a longer context.
The I-539 final-stage wait rose to 121 days this week, up 14 days from last week's 107-day reading and enough to trigger a statistical outlier flag at z=2.71 against the prior 4-week trailing mean. The move is the largest single-week change in the 12-week window, tying two prior swings of 22 days and one of 14 days. Yet the same measure sat at 126 days in the same week last year, a 3.8% improvement year over year. With an 8-week slope of just -0.4 days per week and an R² of 0.01, the underlying trend carries almost no directional signal: this week's jump is consistent with the series' normal week-to-week scatter.
- The I-539 final-stage wait rose to 121 days in Week 36, up 14 days from 107 days the prior week, with an outlier flag firing at z=2.71 against the prior 4-week trailing mean.
- Year over year, the 121-day read is 3.8% below the same week last year (126 days), placing the week's jump in a reassuring longer context.
- The SRC (Texas Service Center) median stands at 65 days with a rising slope of +5.5 days per week (R²=0.88), while WAC (California Service Center) sits at 214 days with a falling slope of -8.7 days per week (R²=0.85), a divergence driven in part by SRC's 49% transfer-touched case mix versus WAC's 0%.
- RFE (Request for Evidence) response cases cleared in a median of 19 days this week versus 117 days for non-RFE cases, an inversion of the typical pattern that may reflect a batch of responses submitted close together.
- The overall I-539 pending backlog of active cases grew +2.1% (+3,845 cases) over the past 28 days, with new filings outpacing clearances across all filing-month groups.
A one-week spike that the calendar puts in perspective
This week's 121-day median is 14 days above last week's 107-day reading, and a statistical outlier flag fired at z=2.71 against the prior 4-week trailing mean. That is a meaningful one-week move in absolute terms. The counterpoint: the same measure was 126 days in the same week of 2025, putting this week 5 days below where things stood a year ago. A single-week outlier and a reassuring year-over-year reading can coexist in a noisy series, and this one qualifies as noisy. The 8-week regression slope is -0.4 days per week, and R² is 0.01, meaning the regression explains almost none of the week-to-week variance. No durable directional claim can be drawn from this week's number alone.
At 121 days this week, the I-539 final-stage wait sits 5 days below where it stood in the same week a year ago.
Noise, not acceleration: what 12 weeks of data say
The 12-week window ran from a low of 94 days (week of Aug 3) to a high of 137 days (week of Jun 15), with a trailing 12-week average of 114 days. This week's 121-day read is above that trailing average but below the season's high. Individual weeks have moved as much as 22 days in a single step, both upward and downward, across the prior 11 weeks. Week-to-week swings of 14 days or more have appeared multiple times in this window, so this week's jump does not stand apart on magnitude alone. The R² of 0.01 confirms the 8-week regression line explains almost none of the movement.
The residual standard deviation for this series is 11 days, and the forecast confidence band runs ±22 days around any projected value. That band width reflects the series' genuine volatility: a single week's reading can move that far from trend through routine variation in which cases happen to clear on any given week. There is no identified cause for this week's 14-day move, and the data brief does not supply one. The honest read is that the series is flat and noisy, and this week fell on the higher side of its typical range.
Mark your calendar: new form edition required by September 15
Across all I-539 filing-month groups combined, the total count of active pending cases rose by 3,845 (+2.1%) over the 28 days from August 10 to September 7. That growth, while modest in percentage terms, indicates new filings are arriving faster than clearances are closing cases. The week-to-week median has not broken upward in trend terms (slope -0.4 days per week, R²=0.01), so the volume increase has not yet translated into a measurable directional pressure on wait times.
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