Approved, Denied, or on Backlog: Issuance Rates, Trends, and Status of T and U Non-immigrant Visas in the United States

With the enactment of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, undocumented crime victims could legalize their status in the United States by obtaining either a T or a U non-immigrant visa. In essence, both visas provide immigration relief from deportation to foreign-born victims along with other legal protections. Although every year a total of 5000 T-visas and 10,000 U-visas are made available to qualifying crime victims, very little is known about their attainability, especially in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using data from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services, the goal of this paper is (1) to examine the number of T- and U-visa applications received, approved, and denied from 2008 to 2022; (2) to identify any potential barriers to the T- and U-visa process that might explain changes in issuance rates over time; and (3) to discuss implications for policy and practice as well as future research directions. Although both visas have seen a decline in application numbers at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, USCIS data suggests that T- and U-visa applicants might be experiencing different visa processing issues. Implications for improving the visa application process include changes to the current eligibility requirements, improved victim identification efforts, and establishing a new framework for immigration policymaking.