3.4 years waiting time for green card, employer-sponsored applications see all-time high delay

Waiting time for green card reached the all-time high within the second quarter of 2025.

Green card applications see the best delays within the second quarter of 2025 as the method time reached 1,265 days or 3.4 years — in comparison with 705 days (1.9 years) in 2016. The figures have been revealed in a brand new report by think-tank Cato Institute. The evaluation mentioned that is an all-time high. According to the Cato Institute’s report, even candidates who pay a $2,805 “premium processing fee” wait virtually two years on common earlier than making it out of the “government’s regulatory morass.” These wait occasions are along with the time candidates should wait to safe a cap slot—based mostly on the numerical limits the federal government units on green playing cards by nation and class—in addition to the months of prefiling that should be achieved earlier than applications can start, Newsweek reported.The evaluation broke down how every stage of getting a green card has turn out to be extra time-consuming between 2016 and 2025. For instance, wage willpower used to take 2.5 months in 2016 however now it takes 6.1 months. “With a process this long, it is no surprise that well over 90 percent of employer-sponsored immigrants going through the labor certification process must already be in the United States to obtain employer sponsorship. These delays create a de facto requirement for employees to use an H1B or other temporary work visa before accessing a green card,” the Cato report famous. “America will lose the global talent competition when other countries grant green cards in a matter of a few weeks or months, not years. It is time for the US government to radically streamline its legal immigration system and eliminate unnecessary, burdensome procedures,” it mentioned. The report famous that a number of the steps of the green card course of is wholly pointless. “Employees with a green card can negotiate fairly for wages since they can leave to find another employer. There is no reason to require US worker recruitment since immigrant workers create an equivalent demand for US workers elsewhere in the economy. Employers can judge a worker’s qualifications better than a government entity. Requiring health screenings and background checks of workers who have been screened abroad and have lived in the United States for years is just as absurd,” it mentioned.