Case Types

Employment-Based Green Card Delays

Point to act: Act from ~12 months, visa number permitting

Your EB-1, EB-2, EB-3 or NIW case — or the I-485 that follows it — has been pending far longer than it should.

How Soon Can a Mandamus Case Be Filed

When does a wait turn into a serious delay?

Benchmarks courts use, not rules — the review reads your actual file.

4 months
- Citizenship (after the interview)
6 months
- 221(g) consular
- Work permit (EAD)
1 year
- Marriage green card
- Employment green card
- Citizenship (N-400)
- EB-5 investor
5 years
- Asylum

All case types

Careers can't wait forever

Employment-based cases carry real professional stakes: promotions deferred, startups on hold, families tied to a single employer while an I-140 or I-485 sits pending. Even after priority dates become current, applications can languish for months with no decision and no explanation.

What mandamus can do

When your case has been pending beyond a reasonable time, a mandamus lawsuit asks a federal court to make USCIS adjudicate it. Because employment categories, service centers, and visa-bulletin movement vary widely, the benchmark we use is about 12 months once a visa number is available — and a case pending nine months may still be actionable in one posture and premature in another. That is exactly what a free evaluation sorts out: whether your delay is one a federal judge is likely to consider unreasonable.

Signs this is your case

Your I-140, NIW petition, or employment-based I-485 is well past posted processing times.
Your priority date is current but nothing is moving.
Repeated service requests produce only form responses.
Job changes or travel are blocked by the pending case.

Run the 60-second pre-assessment or read how to tell a stuck case from a broken one.

Where does your wait sit for this case type?

Pick the stage, how long it has been, and where you live; see which of the four readings it points to — then send it to the attorney.

The stage your file is at

A visa number must be available. An I-140/I-485 pending together and a current I-485 after an approved I-140 are read separately.

Months at this stage

The result page shows which date the count starts from for the stage you picked.

State

Documentable impact of the delay Optional

Concrete harm is not required, but it can help explain what the delay is actually costing you.

Important: this tool shows no percentages and no odds. The reading is a qualitative view of preliminary suitability built from the wait, the stage of the file, visa availability where it applies, and your real federal-court connection. A mandamus case guarantees no particular outcome.