USCIS I-130 IR Consular Progress Slows, Threatening Record-Low Wait Times

USCIS entered 2026 after an exceptional year for I-130 IR Consular cases. After major gains throughout 2025, median end-to-end processing times had fallen to just 12.6 months. For many families, sub-1-year approvals were finally within reach.

Then, around February 16, the first signs of a slowdown began to appear.

You can see the drop clearly in the graph below, which shows USCIS processing activity over the last few weeks. It's important to keep in mind that we only have data for members tracking their case on Track My Visa.

If you're a PRO member, this graph will soon be available in your personalized dashboard!

At Track My Visa, one of the areas we watch most closely is what we call the "Front of the Line." This is not official USCIS terminology, but it is a useful way to understand how far USCIS has moved through the backlog.

Put simply, the Front of the Line is the filing date that separates cases USCIS has already started processing from those that are still waiting. Essentially, it shows how far back in the queue USCIS has reached.

At the time of writing, our data suggests USCIS is processing cases filed on or before February 24, 2025. With today's date being March 5, 2026, that means USCIS has come strikingly close to the 1-year mark for I-130 IR Consular cases!

Here is what a zoomed-in view of the Front of the Line looks like. You can really see the clear divide between which filing dates have been started on and which have not.

Again, keep in mind this is a Track My Visa monitoring concept - not official USCIS terminology.

What is especially notable is that the slowdown in overall I-130 processing activity has been accompanied by a slowdown in forward movement at the Front of the Line.

Through much of 2025, all the way up until the second half of February, USCIS had been advancing the Front of the Line aggressively and consistently. Had that pace continued, the processing of March 2025 filings would likely already be well underway. Instead, USCIS now appears to be pausing forward progress - sometimes holding the line in place for several days before moving it ahead by only a few days.

The chart below shows how USCIS has advanced the Front of the Line on a week-by-week basis. The pattern is hard to miss: steady, reliable progress throughout 2025 and early 2026, followed by a clear stall over the past two weeks.

We are incredibly grateful to the many past members who rejoined Track My Visa after we regained official USCIS data access. Their support helped us rebuild this historical dataset, which now allows us to provide newer members with more accurate estimates and better context.

Even from a zoomed-out view, the recent shift stands out.

And when we zoom in to the daily level, the change becomes even more obvious.

Something has clearly shifted at USCIS.

What we do not yet know is whether this slowdown will be brief - a temporary pause before processing resumes at its prior pace - or whether USCIS is adjusting priorities after the extraordinary progress it made in 2025.

To be clear, the current median processing time of about 12.6 months for I-130 IR Consular cases remains genuinely impressive. Wait times have not been this low in well over a year. But as we know all too well at Track My Visa, momentum matters. When processing slows, wait times can begin rising quickly. Every week, thousands of new cases are filed, and backlog pressure can rebuild fast.

One additional development is worth noting.

On Friday, February 13, just before the broader slowdown became visible in the data, an anonymous poster on Reddit wrote:

"I've read that all I-130 petitions will be reassigned to FOD. I work for SAFE and recently received an email stating that we will no longer be handling I-130s."

We do not like to report on hearsay, and this claim is unconfirmed and unofficial. Still, the timing is difficult to ignore. Whether or not USCIS is actually shifting I-130 processing to another department, the data suggests that something operational may have changed - and it is something we need to watch very closely in the days ahead.

For now, the key question is simple: will this prove to be a short-lived dip, or the start of a more sustained slowdown?

We hope processing numbers begin to rise again soon and that this remains just a temporary interruption in what has been one of the most encouraging trends the I-130 IR Consular community has seen in quite some time.

Whatever happens next, we will be here alongside you.

— Leo, Founder, Track My Visa