Green Card Approvals Cut in Half...

[EatBulaga 523]

"As cases remain pending for longer, applicants may face prolonged uncertainty over their legal status, work authorization, and ability to travel, while some risk losing underlying protections if their temporary status expires before a decision is made."

 

https://www.newsweek.com/green-card-approvals-cut-in-half-impact-11873933

 

Well, we now have real data for what we suspected all along with denials and wait times. This may even correlate with the drop in traffic to this VJ site.

 

https://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/836021-site-traffic/

 

Any thoughts?

 

Edited 5 hours ago by EatBulaga

[Crazy Cat 46,513]

Looks pretty deceptive and biased "reporting" to me.  I see no mention of number of adjudicated cases.... Notice that the Newsweek graph also shows that received number of received applications (not controlled by the Trump administration) has dropped the and the number of denials has dropped.  I don't see that even mentioned in their article.  Also, notice the huge spike in approval numbers during most of 2025......when Trump was POTUS.  Would have been better to report on percentage of approved applications compared to number of adjudicated cases.  That would be the only way to determine if approvals are truly down, imo.

 

Looks like a hit piece with partial and even conflicting data for their conclusions.  I find it difficult to believe a reputable organization would publish this with so much missing data.

 

The articles says " the analysis suggests immigration backlogs are likely to deepen, particularly in family-based and humanitarian categories. "

 

I see no data in their graph or in the article supporting this conclusion.  

 

Am I missing something?

 

Anyway, just my thoughts.....statistics can be presented in many ways...LOL.

Edited 44 minutes ago by Crazy Cat

[EatBulaga 523]

1 hour ago, Crazy Cat said:

Looks pretty deceptive and biased "reporting" to me.  I see no mention of number of adjudicated cases.... Notice that the Newsweek graph also shows that received number of received applications (not controlled by the Trump administration) has dropped the and the number of denials has dropped.  I don't see that even mentioned in their article.  Also, notice the huge spike in approval numbers during most of 2025......when Trump was POTUS.  Would have been better to report on percentage of approved applications compared to number of adjudicated cases. 

 

Looks like a hit piece with partial and even conflicting data for their conclusions.

 

The articles says " the analysis suggests immigration backlogs are likely to deepen, particularly in family-based and humanitarian categories. "

 

I see no data in their graph or in the article supporting this conclusion.  They says processing times have significantly slowed, but I don't see any data. 

 

@Crazy Cat Maybe I should have included the referenced Cato Institute report by David J Bier along with the Newsweek article.

 

"USCIS Cut Green Card Approvals in Half to Help ICE Arrest Legal Immigrants"

https://www.cato.org/blog/uscis-cut-green-card-approvals-half-help-ice-arrest-legal-immigrants

 

Bier's 2024 report, 'Green Card Approval Rate Reaches Record Lows"

https://www.cato.org/briefing-paper/green-card-approval-rate-reaches-record-lows

 

Cato Institute is a libertarian think thank funded mostly by the Koch brothers.

 

[Crazy Cat 46,513]

1 hour ago, EatBulaga said:

Bier's 2024 report, 'Green Card Approval Rate Reaches Record Lows"

https://www.cato.org/briefing-paper/green-card-approval-rate-reaches-record-lows

Published in February 2024.   

FY 2024, referenced in the article, was Oct 2023-Sep 2024.  Irrelevant to any current USCIS trends, imo.

 

1 hour ago, EatBulaga said:

"USCIS Cut Green Card Approvals in Half to Help ICE Arrest Legal Immigrants"

https://www.cato.org/blog/uscis-cut-green-card-approvals-half-help-ice-arrest-legal-immigrants

The Newsweek chart was taken directly from this article.  Missing data, imo.

 

 

Edited 46 minutes ago by Crazy Cat

[EatBulaga 523]

1 hour ago, Crazy Cat said:

Published in February 2024.   

FY 2024, referenced in the article, was Oct 2023-Sep 2024.  Irrelevant to the Trump administration.

The 2024 Bier's report already shows the green card approval rate declining to record lows which may loosely correlate to the site traffic empirical drop starting from 2024?

https://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/836021-site-traffic/#findComment-11101002

One conclusion might be less green cards were being applied?

 

1 hour ago, Crazy Cat said:

The Newsweek chart was taken directly from this article.  Missing data, imo.

Bier's current 2026 report referenced by Newsweek correlated the continued green card approval drop on the current administration to help ICE arrests (which sounds like some political overtones). But Bier's interpretation is that the overall trend continued even with the 2025 spike.

 

Notice I did not once refer to the current administration as I'm hoping to see thru the data noise, or even incomplete data.

 

To answer if Bier's interpretation of the stats/data and however the current administration means to stem illegal immigration correlate to VJ members experience in increased wait times and lower approval rates, the VJ stats need to loosely correlate with some of the Bier's stat/data.

 

Since VJ Timelines are self-selected data, the Bier's stat/data trend may not be reflected in the VJ processing times or approvals rates (does VJ even have data graph for approval rates?)?

Maybe one reason is that mostly the successful members seem to be self-reporting?

However, the current USCIS processing times estimates are currently showing upticks, but does USCIS even show a history of processing times estimates to identify trends? Or does USCIS even report green card approval rates?

 

My premise is that Bier's stats/data may reflect better the experience for those currently waiting for green card approval than the current self-reported VJ stats/data along with the empirical info for the VJ site traffic decline. Or if VJ stats/data are more accurate, then the change in green card wait times or approval rate has not changed much since 2024.

Edited just now by EatBulaga