New Delhi: When an Indian lawyer, who studied at Georgetown University and married a white American veteran, put off her trip to India this September, it wasn’t because of airfare costs or scheduling conflicts. “There’s no movement at all on my citizenship application,” she said, echoing a sentiment that has become increasingly common among US citizens with foreign spouses and parents.
“It feels like they’ve just stopped processing things,” she said, asking not to be named.
That feeling isn’t far from reality.
Besides students and working professionals, family-based immigration — especially spousal and parent green cards — is now facing unprecedented delays, with many US citizens waiting two to three years or more to reunite with loved ones or regularise their spouses' status, said immigration attorneys.
What once took a few months to a year has now become a prolonged bureaucratic ordeal, said Jath Shao, the US-based principal attorney at Shao Law Firm. “By the first Trump administration, it was about a year and a half. Now we’re seeing even US citizens’ spouses take 2-3 or more years to get through.”
The backlog is especially frustrating for Indian applicants, who form one of the top four nationalities, along with the Chinese, Filipinos and Mexicans, navigating US immigration channels, Shao said.
Immigration attorneys point to multiple overlapping reasons for the slowdown with post-Trump policy inertia and changes driving the trend.
According to Keshav Singhania, head of private client practice at New Delhi-based Singhania & Co, the aftermath of the Trump administration’s stricter scrutiny is still being felt. “Policy changes regarding visa interview waiver programme eligibility criteria have led the USCIS ( US Citizenship and Immigration Services) to mandate in-person interviews for a higher number of cases, resulting in longer turnaround times,” he said.
The ‘One Voice for America’s Foreign Relations’ executive order in February mandates a reduction in overseas staff, including consular and local employees, at US embassies and has contributed to the increased delays and backlogs in the application process. “USCIS is understaffed, which means that even in the best of circumstances, it will operate at a sub-optimal rate,” Singhania said.
Applicants are also contending with a surge in interview waivers being withdrawn and a heavy reliance on outdated or inconsistent vetting practices.
“Efforts have been made to pass legislation aimed at significantly reducing legal immigration pathways, particularly family-based immigration, which was often referred to by officials as ‘chain migration’. When these legislative efforts fail, it appears that the government treats these cases as low priority, and this hinders the immigration process,” said Poorvi Chothani, managing partner at LawQuest, an immigration law firm with offices in India and the US.
Chothani recalls a recent case where the father of an Indian-American US citizen passed away while waiting for his green card. Now only his widow will go forward with the process.
It’s not just green cards that are getting delayed — recent policy reversals are making things harder for ‘out of status’ spouses as well.
Sukanya Raman, India head at immigration-focused US law firm Davies & Associates, points to a November 2024 federal court decision that struck down President Biden’s ‘Keeping Families Together’ programme.
She said, “The programme, implemented by the Biden administration in August 2024, allowed these individuals to stay in the US, obtain work permits and apply for legal residency through a process known as parole in place.”
The move impacted nearly half a million out of status immigrants married to US citizens, many of whom now face the risk of being forced to leave the country, which could trigger bans on re-entry.
Out of status refers to a non-citizen who entered the US legally but has since violated the terms of their visa or overstayed its duration, making the stay unauthorised.
Meanwhile, new rules, published by the USCIS on March 5, around social media scrutiny, revised forms and steeper filing fees have further added friction to an already tense process.
“It feels like they’ve just stopped processing things,” she said, asking not to be named.
That feeling isn’t far from reality.
Besides students and working professionals, family-based immigration — especially spousal and parent green cards — is now facing unprecedented delays, with many US citizens waiting two to three years or more to reunite with loved ones or regularise their spouses' status, said immigration attorneys.
What once took a few months to a year has now become a prolonged bureaucratic ordeal, said Jath Shao, the US-based principal attorney at Shao Law Firm. “By the first Trump administration, it was about a year and a half. Now we’re seeing even US citizens’ spouses take 2-3 or more years to get through.”
The backlog is especially frustrating for Indian applicants, who form one of the top four nationalities, along with the Chinese, Filipinos and Mexicans, navigating US immigration channels, Shao said.
Immigration attorneys point to multiple overlapping reasons for the slowdown with post-Trump policy inertia and changes driving the trend.
According to Keshav Singhania, head of private client practice at New Delhi-based Singhania & Co, the aftermath of the Trump administration’s stricter scrutiny is still being felt. “Policy changes regarding visa interview waiver programme eligibility criteria have led the USCIS ( US Citizenship and Immigration Services) to mandate in-person interviews for a higher number of cases, resulting in longer turnaround times,” he said.
The ‘One Voice for America’s Foreign Relations’ executive order in February mandates a reduction in overseas staff, including consular and local employees, at US embassies and has contributed to the increased delays and backlogs in the application process. “USCIS is understaffed, which means that even in the best of circumstances, it will operate at a sub-optimal rate,” Singhania said.
Applicants are also contending with a surge in interview waivers being withdrawn and a heavy reliance on outdated or inconsistent vetting practices.
“Efforts have been made to pass legislation aimed at significantly reducing legal immigration pathways, particularly family-based immigration, which was often referred to by officials as ‘chain migration’. When these legislative efforts fail, it appears that the government treats these cases as low priority, and this hinders the immigration process,” said Poorvi Chothani, managing partner at LawQuest, an immigration law firm with offices in India and the US.
Chothani recalls a recent case where the father of an Indian-American US citizen passed away while waiting for his green card. Now only his widow will go forward with the process.
It’s not just green cards that are getting delayed — recent policy reversals are making things harder for ‘out of status’ spouses as well.
Sukanya Raman, India head at immigration-focused US law firm Davies & Associates, points to a November 2024 federal court decision that struck down President Biden’s ‘Keeping Families Together’ programme.
She said, “The programme, implemented by the Biden administration in August 2024, allowed these individuals to stay in the US, obtain work permits and apply for legal residency through a process known as parole in place.”
The move impacted nearly half a million out of status immigrants married to US citizens, many of whom now face the risk of being forced to leave the country, which could trigger bans on re-entry.
Out of status refers to a non-citizen who entered the US legally but has since violated the terms of their visa or overstayed its duration, making the stay unauthorised.
Meanwhile, new rules, published by the USCIS on March 5, around social media scrutiny, revised forms and steeper filing fees have further added friction to an already tense process.
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