I-821 Final-Stage Waits Are Half of Last Year's, but Rising Fast
This week's 90-day median sits 53% below the same week in 2025, yet an 8-week upward slope of nearly 13 days per week signals the favorable gap is narrowing. The next four weeks could bring the median anywhere from ~59 to 147 days by Aug 31, widening to ~98 to 185 days by late September.
The I-821 (Application for Temporary Protected Status) final-stage median landed at 90 days for the week of Aug 24, less than half the 192-day figure recorded in the same week one year ago. That year-over-year improvement is the most favorable comparison this form has shown in recent memory. The counterweight is an 8-week upward slope of +12.9 days per week (R² = 0.58), a credible but imprecise trend that, if it continues, would carry the median toward ~98 to 185 days by late September. Both signals are real. Neither cancels the other.
- The I-821 final-stage median this week was 90 days, down 53.1% from 192 days in the same week last year (n = 208).
- The 8-week upward slope is +12.9 days per week (R² = 0.58), a moderately reliable trend pointing toward longer waits ahead.
- The total active backlog across all filing cohorts stood at 119,691 cases, down 28,478 (19.2%) over 28 days, with case terminations accounting for a large share of the reduction.
- Cases at the 'USCIS Is Currently Processing' stage show a median wait of 419 days (25th percentile 367 days, 75th percentile 471 days) across 49,762 cases, the largest share of the pipeline at 60.4%.
- Among tracked filing-month groups, the March 2026 group had cleared just 4.7% of its cases after 26 weeks, and the April 2026 group just 6.8% after 21 weeks.
Half the wait of a year ago, and rising
The I-821 final-stage median this week came in at 90 days, compared with 192 days in the same week of 2025, a year-over-year drop of 53.1%. That favorable comparison is real and substantial. At the same time, the 8-week regression slope is +12.9 days per week, meaning the trend over the past two months has been moving in the opposite direction: toward longer waits. Both readings deserve equal weight.
What the 2-to-439-day swing means for your reading
The 12-week window underlying the regression is anything but stable. The week of Jun 8 posted a median of 439 days; Jun 15 dropped to 50; Jun 22 and Jun 29 each came in at 2 days. Those early-summer readings reflect a settling period following a period of high volatility, not a steady directional trend. The R² of 0.58 on the 8-week fit is moderate: the slope of +12.9 days per week is real enough to take seriously, but imprecise enough that the residual standard deviation is 29 days per week. The regression captures a general upward drift, not a tight line.
This week's spread between the 25th percentile (p25) and 75th percentile (p75) ran from 84 to 243 days, a narrowing from last week's 84 to 513-day range. The tighter p75 is a mild positive development. Still, a quarter of cases approved this week waited longer than 243 days from their last reported status to approval, a reminder that the median describes the middle of the population, not the full range of outcomes.
The queue shrank by nearly a fifth in a month
The total active backlog (pending cases, adjudication (the USCIS case decision step) not yet complete, across all filing cohorts) stood at 119,691 cases as of Aug 31, down 28,478 cases over the prior 28 days, a 19.2% contraction. Among the newest filing-month groups tracked in the cohort (a group of cases) table, the May 2026 group showed the largest reduction, losing 17 active cases. The backlog figure covers all filing cohorts combined; the per-cohort rows in the next section cover only the most recent filing months, a separate and much smaller population.
A substantial share of the backlog reduction appears to trace to case terminations rather than approvals. The activity table shows IOE's dominant transition status this period as 'terminated,' and the September 2025 filing-month group alone shows 5,863 cases at terminated status out of 6,078 total, consistent with a TPS country-designation termination affecting that cohort. The July 2025 group shows 1,591 terminated cases out of 1,967. The data brief does not specify which country designation drove these closures; selected news items do not resolve the mechanism. The backlog drop therefore reflects a combination of approvals and terminations, and the two cannot be separated in the current data.
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