Millions of immigrants are stuck in legal limbo under the second Trump administration, an NPR analysis shows, increasing their vulnerability to deportation. Since early last year, the Department of Homeland Security has taken progressively longer to process immigration applications, leaving many people waiting months without confirmation that their filings were received, much less reviewed.
NPR’s review of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) data found roughly 11.6 million pending applications for services such as naturalization, green cards, work permits and asylum decisions. Separately, USCIS reported 247,974 cases in a “frontlog” — applications that appear to have been submitted (often by mail) but have not been physically opened or categorized by the agency.
Advocates and immigration lawyers say the growing backlog reflects an administration strategy to slow legal migration by slowing adjudications. “That is a really incredible representation of what this administration is trying to do when it comes to immigration. It’s ‘throttle everything, focus entirely on deportations and arrests as your measure of success,’” said David Bier of the Cato Institute. “If those are your only measures of success, then who cares about opening applications that could prevent someone from being arrested and prevent someone from having to self-deport?”
USCIS spokesman Matthew Tragesser said the administration has implemented enhanced “screening and vetting processes” that previous leadership overlooked. He said tougher naturalization tests, social media checks and neighborhood visits are intended to ensure applicants demonstrate “good moral character and an attachment to the Constitution,” and that USCIS will not take shortcuts in adjudications.
The slowdown has produced stress and confusion for applicants and their representatives. Seattle immigration attorney Luis Cortes Romero said some clients have waited a year for an interview that was then delayed by paperwork issues and has not been rescheduled. He noted that applicants often do not know whether the agency even received their packet until it is opened. “Our clients are facing immediate anxiety. The conversations we’re having with clients are like, ‘Did you really send it?’” he said.
Pending applications — the backlog figure representing all unapproved or undenied cases in any category and from any filing period — have more than doubled over the last decade. That number surged by about 2 million in the first year of the second Trump administration, a larger increase than in all four years of President Trump’s first term. Some case types still move quickly, while others see months-long waits before USCIS acknowledges receipt.
Nicole Melaku of the National Partnership for New Americans said the data shows the administration is “slow-walking or even denying the opportunity for these people to adjust” their status. In the latter half of last year, the administration paused many application reviews, including asylum cases (which only restarted in late March) and reviews for applicants from 39 countries on a travel-ban list, citing security concerns.
Supporters of stricter screening argue additional scrutiny is needed. Elizabeth Jacobs of the Center for Immigration Studies suggested the early surge in the backlog may reflect the administration ending other pathways to legal status that bypass USCIS, such as humanitarian parole, but acknowledged that long processing times pose problems for both immigrants and enforcement priorities. Brandy Perez Carbaugh, formerly with the Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center, said the volume of pending applications shows the system is unmanageable and called for pauses in new applications until backlogs fall, along with tougher fraud detection.
The frontlog — cases received but not yet opened — is particularly disruptive because USCIS does not confirm receipt until it assigns and opens an application. Many filings are still mailed, including petitions for trafficking and domestic violence survivors, juvenile applicants and some work permits. Attorneys say electronic filing options, expanded since the COVID-19 pandemic, remain limited, and the agency’s antiquated infrastructure contributes to delays.
Renata Castro, an immigration attorney, said clients may wait up to eight months before USCIS confirms receipt. That gap can be decisive: while an immigration judge may refrain from issuing a final deportation order if someone can show USCIS paperwork proving a pending application, judges and private attorneys sometimes pressure applicants for a receipt the government has not produced. “We have judges pressuring us, private immigration attorneys, to produce a document that the government is not able to produce and threatening our clients with deportation because the government cannot issue a receipt,” Castro said.
USCIS began publicly tracking frontlog numbers in 2023. The data show the frontlog was zero in 2023, rose to 77,291 by the end of March 2024 amid a surge of filings ahead of new fees, then fell back to zero over the next three quarters. After the second Trump administration took office, the frontlog climbed again — to 34,028 in the administration’s first three months and reaching 247,974 by the end of September 2025.
Felicia Escobar Carrillo, who served as USCIS chief of staff under the Biden administration, noted the agency had worked to reduce a frontlog it inherited and that the numbers fluctuate with application volumes. Still, immigration attorneys say the current rise in unprocessed and pending cases is taking a toll. “This has impacted my practice, my mental health, my clients, my clients’ mental health,” Renata Castro said. “They’re just overwhelmed, tired and frazzled from the uncertainty.”