I-821D Renewal Waits Reach Preliminary 151-Day High as RFE Cases Clear in Days

The preliminary median final-stage wait for I-821D DACA renewals this week is 151 days, based on 381 approved cases, a sample roughly half the prior 12-week pace. Because the sample is preliminary, this week's reading may shift as additional approvals are recorded. Placed in context, it continues a pattern that began in early March: the median was 119 days in the week of March 2 and has risen steadily to its current level, a 32-day increase over 12 weeks.

The underlying trend carries the label "noisy stable" in the data: a slope of +1.3 days per week with an R² of 0.27 means the upward direction is present but the fit is loose. Weekly readings have ranged from 119 days (W11) to 157 days (W19) and have not moved in a straight line. The March-to-April period saw a more compressed 25th percentile (p25) to 75th percentile (p75) band; recent weeks show wider spread, consistent with a smaller and more variable sample. Readers should understand this as a gradual grind upward, not a consistent acceleration.

Virtually all I-821D activity routes through the IOE (e-filed) channel. Looking at the stage breakdown across the full pending caseload in the last 30 days, 46.4% of cases, totaling 36,543 cases, sit at "Case Is Still Being Processed By USCIS" with a median stage duration of 83 days (25th percentile 50 days, 75th percentile 115 days) across those cases. An additional 34.6% are at biometrics (fingerprint appointment) scheduling with a median of 21 days across 27,245 cases. The processing stage is where the bulk of time accumulates, and its median of 83 days at that status alone accounts for a large share of the 151-day overall final-stage wait.

This week, an rfe_fast anomaly flag fired in the I-821D data. The RFE (Request for Evidence, USCIS's standard follow-up letter asking for missing documents) response group posted a median final-stage wait of just 8 days, against 141 days for cases that received no RFE. The ratio is roughly 18:1 in favor of RFE-response cases. Receiving an RFE does not by itself signal denial; the adjudication (USCIS's case decision step) most often results in approval once the response is submitted.

The probable mechanism is a batch effect rather than a systemic change in how USCIS handles RFE responses. The 122 RFE-response cases in this week's approval group likely represent older responses that cleared adjudication quickly once the response was received and processed together. The approval cohort's weighted-average p50 (the median, 50th percentile) for rfe_response status was just 6 days, consistent with cases that had been waiting in queue and moved through together. The sample is small enough, 122 cases out of 381 total approvals this week, that one such batch can shift the figure materially. This anomaly may not persist next week, and the data brief does not supply a mechanism beyond the batch-clearing pattern.

A batch of older RFE responses likely cleared together this week; 122 cases is too thin a sample to treat 8 days as a new baseline.