❄️ Happy Friday! Today's newsletter is 660 words, a quick 3.5-min read.

📝 Author’s Note: Sorry for the short hiatus on the newsletter, but if you were waiting for that data I teased in the Nov 14 edition, then keep scrolling!

 📅 Immigration Insiders Meeting with Michael Valverde: Don’t miss our last meeting of 2025 with with Michael Valverde, former Associate Director of Field Operations at USCIS.

Until recently, Michael led all 89 field offices at USCIS and is going to help us break down:

• How USCIS will operationalize the mass green card reexaminations for 700,000+ individuals from the 19 entry ban countries

• What’s actually happening with case processing for asylum cases

• Forecasting the coming immigration policy changes in Q1 of 2026

1 big thing: O-1 approval rates falling and EB-2 NIW approval rates rising

According to new data from Lawfully, the O-1 approval rate decreased by 7% on average in the six-month period from June - November 2025 compared with the previous six-month period from December 2024 - May 2025.

November marked the lowest O-1 approval rate that Lawfully has tracked in the last 18 months.

Why this matters: The O-1 is being pushed by many law firms as a more timely alternative to the H-1B in these tumultuous times. When USCIS releases it’s official dataset of O-1 receipts in April 2026, I expect we’ll see that the demand for the visa increased from July - December 2025.

Until recently, the O-1 approval rate remained quite high—between 90 - 95%. But for five of the last six months, Lawfully has tracked a monthly approval rate below 90%, with November coming in below 80%.

Many of the former USCIS executives I’ve spoken with have forecasted a coming increase in scrutiny for O-1 petitions in particular.

There are two likely factors causing the current decline in the approval rate:

1. Increased demand for the O-1 is driving more under-qualified applications into the adjudication pool. This is certainly one factor contributing to the decreased EB-2 NIW and EB-1A approval rates as well.
   

2. USCIS officers are applying greater scrutiny to the high standards required for the O-1 visa. While there hasn’t been an official policy change yet on the O-1, that doesn’t mean adjudicator sentiment within the agency hasn’t shifted under new political leadership.

Important Note: There is a massive disparity in approval and RFE rates for O-1 petitions that are filed with premium processing vs. regular processing.

But if you want to see that data, you need to subscribe to Lawfully Intelligence—our monthly subscription for immigration practitioners to access our most detailed, real-time USCIS case processing data for 23 employment based case types.

Email me at [email protected] and I’ll get you set up with a subscription.

It’s $499/month, but we’re offering a 1-month trial discount for December. There’s no commitment and you can cancel anytime.

Lastly, some good news: For two months in a row, Lawfully tracked a slight increase in the EB-2 NIW approval rate. It’s still under 50%, but the upward trend is encouraging.

2. The Trump admin is reducing immigration data transparency

As you can imagine, I track government immigration data very closely. I check the USCIS, DOL, and State Department websites daily for new data releases.

But I’m noticing a concerning trend: release delays and inconsistencies, and in some cases, the removal of data that used to be publicly available.

The State Department used to release Monthly Nonimmigrant Visa Issuance Statistics by consulate and visa type. But the last set of data came in June 2025, covering the previous month.

Why it matters: It seems that going forward, the State Department will no longer make this data publicly available—meaning we’re relying entirely on hearsay to understand consular trends.

Meanwhile, the Department of Labor’s Performance Data for July–September is also taking longer than usual to be released. This covers LCA, PERM, PWD, and other data.

The government shutdown may have contributed to the delay, but I’m eagerly waiting for it—because, among other things, the LCA data shows quarterly H-1B demand…something I expect to decline substantially throughout 2026.

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📩 That’s it for this week! I want to hear your feedback and questions, so drop me a note anytime at [email protected].

See you next week!