The promise
“… the goal of the immigration protections for battered immigrants included in the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 was to remove immigration laws as a barrier that kept battered immigrant women and children locked in abusive relationships”
Congress, Battered Immigrant Women Protection Act of 2000, sec. 1502(a)(1)
That was the promise.
Today the wait for a decision is measured in years, and a pending petition gives neither a work permit nor lawful status. We are survivors who filed VAWA self-petitions between 2020 and 2022, and we are still waiting. This site and the report behind it are built from USCIS's own published records.
While a petition waits
What waiting takes
Work
A pending petition gives no work permit. By law, a self-petitioner's work authorization comes with approval, so survivors with no other route to a permit cannot work legally while they wait.
Family
Leaving the country, even to see a dying parent or to attend a funeral, can mean a ten-year bar on returning.
Safety
If a petition is denied, USCIS's policy is now to begin deportation proceedings for a petitioner without lawful status. Since August 2026, officers may deny without first asking for missing evidence.
Health
Survivors of partner violence can experience depression and post-traumatic stress. Agencies that serve immigrant survivors saw the share of clients less depressed rise from 19% after filing to 55% with a work permit.
The wait
Six years in line
What a survivor who filed in mid-2020 has been put through.
A timeline of public events, not one person's account. Each entry is sourced in the full report.
Mid-2020
The petition is filed.
USCIS's average wait for spouse petitions decided that year is 21.3 months.
Spring 2022
The average wait passes with no decision.
USCIS's posted time has grown to 25.5 months.
January 2023
The case moves to a new service center.
USCIS opens its HART Service Center to cut humanitarian backlogs.
FY2024
The average wait passes three years.
Spouse petitions decided that year had waited 38 months on average.
April 2025
Approvals fall by half.
USCIS approves 1,547 VAWA petitions from April to June, against 3,108 the quarter before.
October 2025
Approvals all but stop.
About 422 a quarter since, 78% fewer than in FY2021 to FY2023. USCIS denies most of the petitions it decides.
December 2025
The rules change, even for petitions already waiting.
New evidence rules apply to petitions filed years earlier.
April 2026
Approvals are reportedly paused.
A news report says officers were told to hold approvals until new fingerprint checks were done.
August 2026
Denial without a chance to respond.
Officers may now deny without first asking for missing evidence.
November 2026
Still waiting, more than six years on.
USCIS's posted processing time is now 52.5 months.
272,911
petitions waiting for a decision, up from 26,294 in December 2019
99,940
at least, have waited more than two years, whatever order USCIS works in
7.8 to 1
new petitions for each one decided in the last four quarters
40.8 years
to clear today's backlog at the past year's pace
The record
What USCIS's own records show
The wait harms survivors, and USCIS says so.
A pending petition gives no work permit and no lawful status. USCIS writes that delays are “harming survivors with legitimate claims.”
A denial can now mean deportation.
Since February 2025 USCIS's policy is to begin deportation proceedings when it denies a petitioner without lawful status. Rules rewritten in December 2025 apply to petitions filed years earlier.
Approvals have all but stopped.
Since October 2025 USCIS has approved about 422 VAWA petitions a quarter, 78% fewer than in FY2021 to FY2023. From April to June 2026, 75% of its decisions were denials.
The wait keeps growing.
USCIS's average wait for spouse petitions rose from 21.3 months in FY2020 to 40.6 in FY2025, and its posted time is now 52.5 months.
Money does not explain it.
USCIS collected $7.5 billion in fees in FY2025, spent $6 billion and carried $4.1 billion into FY2026. Keeping pace with filings would take about 262 officers; USCIS reported about 50 in 2020.
Others move first.
At the past year's pace USCIS would clear its backlog of employers' petitions for temporary workers in 0.3 years and of VAWA petitions in 40.8. Employers can pay for an answer within 15 business days; survivors cannot.
USCIS's stated priorities lie elsewhere.
Its review of 2025 lists about 196,600 deportation notices, 14,400 referrals to ICE and 2,400 arrests at its offices as accomplishments. The words backlog, victim and survivor do not appear in it.
The misuse claim cannot be tested without decisions.
Parent petitions surged and are mostly undecided. Leaving parents out, spouse and child petitions waiting rose from 23,723 at the end of 2019 to 148,384. Only prompt decisions, with fair notice before any denial, can tell valid petitions from invalid ones.
In their own words
The government and the courts describe the harm themselves
“When unqualified aliens misuse the VAWA program, it causes significant processing delays, harming survivors with legitimate claims.”
“USCIS notes that due to processing times and backlogs, a self-petitioner does not know when a Form I-360 will be adjudicated …”
“… although Plaintiff is undoubtedly prejudiced by the delay, the consequences of delay are likely to be great for all VAWA self-petitioners with a valid claim.”
What we ask
What Congress can do
Right away
- Send USCIS the ten questions in the full report, with its draft letter.
- Open case inquiries for constituents waiting longer than USCIS's posted time.
From January 2027
- Hold an oversight hearing, and ask GAO to review staffing, order and counts.
- Write a backlog plan and quarterly public reporting into DHS appropriations report language.
- Support work permits 180 days after filing, as H.R. 4817 would require.
- Protect earlier filers: notice before any denial under the new rules, and no deportation referral after years in the backlog.
Our initiatives
While we wait, we act.
Waiting is not all we do. We are working in Congress, in court and with one another.
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In Congress
A record Congress can act on
We turned USCIS's own published data into a 43-page briefing for congressional offices, with ten questions for USCIS and draft language that members' offices can use.
Read the full report -
In court
A federal class action for 2020, 2021 and 2022 filers
Survivors who filed VAWA self-petitions in 2020, 2021 and 2022 are joining together, with an experienced federal immigration litigator, to ask a court to order decisions on their petitions. We are finalizing the group of plaintiffs now.
The announcement explains who can join, how legal costs are shared and how to take part.
Read the announcement on Reddit -
Together
A community of petitioners still waiting
Our WhatsApp group is where we organize and keep one another informed, about the lawsuit and about our work in Congress. If you filed in 2020, 2021 or 2022 and are still waiting, you are not alone.
Before you join: other members can see your phone number and profile name. Join only if that is safe for you.
Join the WhatsApp group
The full report
Every figure, sourced.
The 43-page briefing for congressional offices has twelve findings, ten questions for USCIS, a draft letter, draft report language and a draft GAO request. Each source is listed with its web address.
Congressional offices: policy@justiceforvawa.org