Preliminary I-751 median looks calm while the pending backlog builds fast
Week 23, 2026 brings an early read of 42 days at the final stage, well below the 12-week average, but active pending cases grew nearly 50% in 31 days and no 2026 filing-month group has reached meaningful approval rates yet.
This week's preliminary I-751 final-stage median of 42 days sits well below the 12-week trailing average of 84 days, which might suggest the system is running smoothly. It is not the whole picture. The 42-day figure captures only the thin slice of cases exiting the queue this week, across a sample of just 188 approvals. Meanwhile, the active pending population reached 60,246 cases as of June 7, up 19,638 cases (+48.4%) in 31 days. Every 2026 filing-month group, from January through May, shows 0.0% approved as of this snapshot. The weekly median and the backlog count measure different things; both are real, and together they describe a system absorbing new cases much faster than it is clearing them.
- The active I-751 pending backlog reached 60,246 cases as of June 7, up +19,638 cases (+48.4%) over the prior 31 days.
- Every 2026 filing-month group from January through May shows 0.0% approved as of this week's snapshot, meaning essentially no cases filed this year have cleared yet.
- This week's preliminary final-stage median of 42 days is based on only 188 approvals and sits 42 days below the 12-week trailing average of 84 days.
- Cases with an RFE (Request for Evidence) cleared in a median 21 days at the final stage, compared with 81 days for cases without one, a 3.78x speed ratio.
- The 12-week forecast band for the week of June 8 runs ~18 to 101 days, reflecting an R² of just 0.22 on the 8-week regression.
A calm surface, a building queue
The final-stage wait metric for I-751 (Petition to Remove Conditions on Residence) measures the gap between a case's last recorded status and its approval. This week's preliminary read puts that figure at 42 days, based on 188 approved cases in the week of June 1. Because the sample is at roughly 50% to 70% of the prior 12-week median volume, this number should be treated as an early signal rather than a settled estimate. Against the 12-week trailing average of 84 days, 42 days looks fast. But the final-stage metric captures only the cases currently exiting the queue; it says little about the far larger population still waiting.
What the backlog numbers say that the median does not
The active pending I-751 backlog of cases not yet adjudicated stood at 60,246 cases as of June 7, up 19,638 cases (+48.4%) from the May 7 count. May 2026 intake alone contributed 7,411 newly active cases, the largest single-month addition in this window. Looking across all 2026 filing-month groups, from January (22 weeks old) through May (5 weeks old), every group shows 0.0% approved as of this snapshot. The system is absorbing new filings at a pace the current approval throughput has not yet matched.
Twelve weeks of wide swings
Over the past 12 weeks, I-751 final-stage medians have ranged from 37 days (weeks of May 18 and May 25) to 185 days (week of March 30), with a 12-week average of 84 days. The 8-week regression slope of -6.7 days per week suggests a downward direction, but the R² of 0.22 means that linear fit explains only about one-fifth of the week-to-week variation. The spread between the 25th percentile (p25) and the 75th percentile (p75) this week runs from 33 to 212 days, a span of 179 days, reflecting genuine variability across individual cases rather than a tightly clustered population. The honest read here is noise around a rough plateau, not a clean trend.
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