A new analysis of U.S. immigration data has quantified both the scale of the immigrant population’s contribution to American economic and civic life and the cost of the administrative backlog that keeps millions of those contributors in a state of prolonged legal uncertainty. The findings, released by The Mendoza Law Firm, reveal that as of June 2025, the United States was home to 51.9 million immigrants, a population whose economic participation, workforce contributions, and community ties are measurable, significant, and being actively undermined by an immigration processing system under unprecedented strain.
The data presents a clear and often overlooked picture of who immigrants in America are. The median age of the first-generation immigrant population is 46 years, reflecting extensive integration into the workforce and broader economy. 76.6% of first-generation immigrants, approximately 39.3 million people, are between the ages of 18 and 64, actively participating as employees, business owners, caregivers, and taxpayers across every major sector of the national economy. The immigrant population is nearly evenly split by gender, comprising 25.91 million women and 25.37 million men, a demographic reality that challenges persistent stereotypes about the composition of the immigrant workforce.
These are not people on the margins of American economic life. They are workers in hospitals, technology companies, construction sites, schools, restaurants, and homes across the country, contributing tax revenue, filling critical labor shortages, and supporting the communities in which they have built their lives. And millions of them are doing all of this while simultaneously navigating a visa backlog that USCIS itself acknowledges has reached a record 11.3 million pending applications, with average wait times approaching a full year even for routine filings.
The Backlog Is Disrupting Real Workers in Real Jobs
The human cost of the immigration processing backlog is perhaps most immediate and visible in the labor market. Employment Authorization Documents, which determine whether immigrants can legally work, are subject to a processing backlog of more than 1.67 million pending I-765 applications, with more than 1 million waiting beyond the six-month mark and average processing times running 10 to 11 months.
When those documents expire before renewals are processed, the consequences are swift and severe. Hospitals have documented immediate terminations of nurses, technicians, and support staff whose EADs lapsed even while renewal applications were actively pending. Technology firms have removed H-4 and refugee workers from projects mid-stream. Nonprofit organizations have lost critical staff overnight, with the disruption falling simultaneously on household income and the communities those workers were serving.
Once authorization lapses, affected workers face a situation with few good options. They cannot legally work for any employer in any capacity, cannot qualify for gig economy platforms, and are categorically ineligible for unemployment insurance, since eligibility requires valid work authorization throughout the base and benefit periods. Workers who have spent years contributing to the labor market, paying taxes, and building careers can find themselves without income, without access to the safety net, and with no clear timeline for resolution, through no fault of their own and as a direct consequence of administrative delays in a system they have no ability to control.
Families Are Being Kept Apart for Years
Beyond the workforce, the backlog is separating families. Family-based I-130 petitions, the primary pathway for U.S. citizens and permanent residents to sponsor immediate relatives, account for more than 2.36 million pending applications, with nearly 2 million delayed beyond six months and an average processing time of 15 months. Some immediate-relative cases can take between 17 and 60 months, pushing approvals for certain families toward the end of the decade.
For the spouses, children, and parents on both sides of these pending petitions, those timelines translate into years of enforced separation, sustained emotional strain, and the financial pressure of maintaining households and lives in two countries simultaneously. For children growing up separated from a parent, or elderly parents separated from adult children who have built lives in the United States, the cost is not measurable in processing fees or lost wages alone.
Pathways to permanent residency and citizenship are equally delayed. I-751 petitions to remove conditions on residence average 21 months to process, leaving lawful residents in prolonged uncertainty about their long-term legal status. More than 640,000 naturalization applications are currently pending, preventing long-term residents who have met every legal requirement for citizenship from taking the final step toward full civic participation.
Immigrants Are Not Waiting: They Are Building
What the backlog numbers do not capture is what immigrants are doing while they wait. The overwhelming majority are not idle. They are working second jobs to support families, attending community colleges and university programs, raising children who are growing up as American as any other generation, running small businesses that employ local workers, and providing childcare and community support that enables other families to participate in the workforce.
Second-generation immigrants, with a median age of just 22.6 and 40.6% under the age of 18, represent the next chapter of the same story that has defined American demographic growth for generations. Third-and-higher generation populations, with a median age of 40.3 and 58.4% in the prime working-age bracket, are already fully embedded in the economic and civic fabric of the country their families helped build.
The backlog does not pause any of this. It simply adds an ongoing layer of legal uncertainty, financial pressure, and emotional strain to lives that are already fully engaged in the daily work of building something in America. Until the system is reformed to match the scale of its caseload, that strain will continue to be borne disproportionately by some of the country’s most economically active, community-invested, and long-term residents, at a cost that falls on immigrants and the broader American economy alike.
