An application to adjust status (Form I-485) can sit for months or years after the biometrics appointment. Some of those delays are the agency’s, some are built into the law, and whether a federal court can do anything about them now depends heavily on where the applicant lives.

Quick Facts

  • Statute: 8 U.S.C. § 1255(a), adjustment “in [the agency’s] discretion”
  • Visa number: must be immediately available when the application is filed
  • Court access: contested; several circuits say § 1252(a)(2)(B)(ii) bars I-485 delay suits
  • While pending: work and travel permits can be requested (Forms I-765, I-131)

Why I-485 applications stall

  • Background and security checks that remain open after biometrics.
  • Visa availability. The statute requires that an immigrant visa be “immediately available” when the application is filed (8 U.S.C. § 1255(a)(3)), and a number must also be available when the case is approved. When the Visa Bulletin retrogresses, approvable cases wait.
  • File transfers between the National Benefits Center, service centers and field offices.
  • Interview scheduling at busy field offices, or an interview followed by no decision.
  • Requests for evidence, during which the clock is the applicant’s, not the agency’s.
  • Policy holds. USCIS sometimes pauses whole categories. In December 2025, for example, a policy memorandum put diversity-visa adjustment applications on hold; a federal court later found that pause unlawful as to the plaintiffs before it (Ivanov v. Trump, No. 26-cv-915 (D.D.C. Aug. 25, 2026)).

Can a court hear an I-485 delay case?

Adjustment of status is granted by the agency “in [its] discretion” (8 U.S.C. § 1255(a)), and 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(B)(ii) removes federal-court jurisdiction over decisions or actions the statute places in the agency’s discretion. The question is whether the pace of adjudication is one of those discretionary actions.

  • Several courts of appeals say yes, and bar the suits. The Fifth Circuit held that § 1255(a) leaves to the agency not only the final decision but also the pace of the process (Cheejati v. Blinken, 106 F.4th 388 (5th Cir. 2024)). The Eleventh Circuit reached the same result (Kanapuram v. Director, USCIS, 131 F.4th 1302 (11th Cir. 2025)).
  • District courts elsewhere are divided. In the District of Columbia, one judge dismissed an investor’s delay claims over both the EB-5 petition and the I-485 for lack of jurisdiction (Rayan v. Mullin, No. 26-cv-824 (D.D.C. Sept. 21, 2026)), while another had found jurisdiction over an EB-5 delay claim before rejecting it on the merits (Perez Correa Camarena v. Mullin, No. 26-cv-730 (D.D.C. June 29, 2026)).

Where these suits are still heard, the ordinary delay test applies: the six TRAC factors, the posted processing times and the applicant’s own share of the delay. There is more on delay cases over adjustment of status, including how the jurisdiction question has played out by forum.

Steps short of a lawsuit

  • A USCIS service request once the case is outside the posted processing time.
  • A request for case assistance to the CIS Ombudsman.
  • A congressional inquiry.
  • An expedite request where USCIS’s criteria are met.

While the case is pending, applicants can request employment authorization and advance parole. Leaving the United States without advance parole generally abandons a pending I-485.

Sources

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