☀️ Good afternoon! Today's newsletter is 959 words, a 4-min. read. Thanks to Travis Feuerbacher for contributing during his appearance yesterday on Lawfully’s Immigration Insiders meeting.

📊 New data: If you’re one of the early subscribers here—thank you! As a small show of gratitude, you’re getting the first look at Lawfully’s latest data on I-140 approval rates for EB-2 NIWs in August.

👉 Small ask: Please pass this newsletter along to your colleagues in the immigration space and invite them to subscribe.

1 big thing: I-140 approval rate for EB-2 NIW decreases over the summer

Reports of tougher scrutiny on EB-2 NIW cases have circulated for over a year, but our data shows a big drop in the approval rate started between May and June this year.

According to new data from Lawfully, the I-140 approval rate for EB-2 NIW cases fell to 31% in July, and held at the same rate in August.

EB-1A update: the I-140 approval rate came in at 50% in August, according to Lawfully’s data.

In my newsletter last week, I reported that July’s approval rate was 44%, but after reviewing the data again we revised that number up slightly to 48%. Check my Author’s Notes at the bottom if you’d like more detail on the July revision.

What’s next: USCIS reports approval data for I-140s quarterly, not monthly.

From Jan - Mar 2025, USCIS showed a 67% approval rate. Lawfully’s data for the same period averaged 63%.

USCIS is expected to release Apr–Jun data on Sept 30.

Our data projects the I-140 approval rate for EB-2 NIW will be between 45–51%; for EB-1A, we project an approval rate between 52–58%.

Then the agency is expected to release Jul - Sep data on Dec 30. Based on current trends, we expect their reported approval rate to fall even further.

What do you do with this data? That’s where my input stops.

Some practitioners may use it to reset expectations with clients, others may wait and see to keep tracking this trend and see if it holds, and some may adjust filing strategy if the lower approval rates continue.

I leave the interpretation and potential action in response of these trends to the practitioners. 🫡

🎙️ On the pod: Helen Partlow, Managing Attorney at Waypoint Immigration, joined me on The Weekly Immigration News Recap this week to break down and contextualize this data.

She specializes in EB-2 NIW and EB-1A cases, so it was great to hear her take on what she’s seeing with clients and in consultations. The episode drops on Spotify tomorrow morning.

2. Immigration practitioners should prepare for increasing backlogs in the consular system

Former U.S. Consular Officer Travis Feuerbacher was our guest co-host on yesterday’s Immigration Insiders meeting—and it was a session jam-packed with information.

We don’t often focus on consular trends here, but it’s an integral piece of the overall immigration puzzle.

And Travis is a deep well of knowledge on what’s happening at the biggest consulates worldwide, and now advises law firms and individual applicants through his company, ZF Visa & Immigration.

Of course, there was data: we dug into the 2025 visa issuance data for F, H, O, and L visas at major posts like Chennai, London, and Beijing.

The data showed significant year-over-year drops in issuances, and Travis offered sharp insight into what’s driving the change and what practitioners should expect next.

The big takeaway, though, was Travis’s full breakdown of how all the new policies and trends from the last 8 months are inevitably clogging the whole consular system.

His comments on social media vetting stood out most: while officially rolled out for F, M, and J applicants, Travis shared that he is already seeing it applied to some O, L, and H-1B cases.

As he put it: “It’s probably going to be the new normal.”

The audio recording of our session with Travis will drop on the Realtime Immigration podcast feed on Spotify in the next 1-2 weeks.

3. Pressure is ramping up on the H-1B program—possible announcement on reform coming soon from the White House

Every signal I’m tracking from the Trump administration points to a surprise White House announcement on H-1B reform—and soon.

How we got here: recently, top Trump administration officials—including Vice President J.D. Vance and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick—have publicly raised concerns about the H-1B program.

USCIS Director Joseph Edlow has also been vocal about his concerns with the current state of the program, emphasizing the need for stricter wage scrutiny—something he’s pursuing in the proposed ‘Weighted Selection’ rule that we covered in-depth last week.

Less important (but still relevant), influential Fox News host Laura Ingahram has been sharply criticizing the H-1B program in the last several weeks.

The canary in the coal mine: but today, in a new interview with the Center for Immigration Studies, Edlow punted on a question about H-1B reform, stating twice that he doesn't "want to get ahead of the White House" on an announcement.

What’s next: I’ll dig deeper into what could be in this potential announcement, and share what I find in a future newsletter.

Thus far, Lawfully has not seen any significant changes in RFE or approval rates for H-1Bs through August.

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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!

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📝 Authors Notes:

Revision to July I-140 approval rate (EB-1A): After a minor refinement in our methodology for analyzing monthly USCIS case processing data, we identified a small number of additional EB-1A I-140 completions that should be included in our tracking to provide a more accurate estimate of approval rates. Accounting for these cases raised Lawfully’s July approval rate from 44% to 48%.