Two nonimmigrant categories exist for people who were harmed in the United States and are useful to a prosecution. The U visa, for victims of listed crimes who help law enforcement, and the T visa, for victims of trafficking who comply with reasonable requests for assistance. Both carry no filing fee at any stage, both lead to a green card, and both are rationed: 10,000 U visas a year, 5,000 T visas. For the U visa the ration has never been enough, and the program has evolved into a system for deciding who waits with a work permit and who waits without one.
The U visa: what qualifies
The crime must be on the list at 8 CFR 214.14(a)(9): rape, torture, trafficking, incest, domestic violence, sexual assault, abusive sexual contact, prostitution, sexual exploitation, female genital mutilation, being held hostage, peonage, involuntary servitude, slave trade, kidnapping, abduction, unlawful criminal restraint, false imprisonment, blackmail, extortion, manslaughter, murder, felonious assault, witness tampering, obstruction of justice, perjury, fraud in foreign labor contracting, stalking, and attempt, conspiracy or solicitation to commit any of them, together with "any similar activity." The crime must have occurred in the United States or its territories, or have violated a federal law with extraterritorial reach.
The petitioner must have suffered substantial physical or mental abuse, must possess information about the crime, and must have been helpful, be helpful, or be likely to be helpful to the investigation or prosecution, without having refused a reasonable request since cooperation began. A parent, guardian or next friend may supply the information and the helpfulness for a victim under 16 or one who is incapacitated.
The certification
The petition is Form I-918, and its indispensable attachment is Supplement B, the certification from a law enforcement agency that the petitioner has been, is or is likely to be helpful. It must be signed by the head of the agency or a designated supervisor, and it must have been signed within the six months immediately preceding the filing. A certification older than that at the date USCIS receives the petition is a defect, and since August 5, 2026 a petition that omits required initial evidence may be denied without a request for evidence. USCIS reviews everything de novo and may investigate any aspect of the petition, and the petitioner may submit any credible evidence.
Family members come in on Supplement A: a spouse and children, and for a principal under 21, parents and unmarried siblings under 18. Status runs for up to four years, extendable on a fresh certification that the person's presence is still needed, or automatically while an adjustment application is pending.
The cap and the waiting list
Congress allows 10,000 principal grants a fiscal year, with no cap on family members. USCIS met the fiscal 2025 cap on September 9, 2025, adjudicating in filing-date order, and says it has met the cap every year since fiscal 2010. Everyone eligible but unnumbered goes onto a waiting list under 214.14(d)(2), oldest petition first, and receives deferred action or parole, may apply for a work permit, and accrues no unlawful presence while waiting. Numbers in the next year go out in order with no further action by the petitioner. The regulation also says USCIS may remove a petitioner from the list and terminate deferred action in its discretion.
The bona fide determination
Because the waiting list itself took years to reach, USCIS created a preliminary step on June 14, 2021, the bona fide determination described in Policy Manual Volume 3, Part C, Chapter 5. A principal's petition is bona fide when the I-918 is complete with its required initial evidence, including the Supplement B and a personal statement of the victimization, and the biometrics-based background checks have come back. USCIS then decides whether the petitioner presents a national security or public safety risk and otherwise merits discretion. If so, the petitioner receives an employment authorization document under category (c)(14) and deferred action, both valid for four years, and the petition goes back into the queue in receipt order to wait for a number. A petitioner who filed Form I-765 with the petition gets the card directly; one who did not receives a notice and files then. The I-765 is free in this category, as is every U form through adjustment.
Family members are reviewed after the principal and are not guaranteed a determination by the principal's; the relationship must be shown by credible evidence and their own checks must be complete. A petitioner who does not receive a bona fide determination is not denied; the petition goes to a full waiting list adjudication instead. USCIS rechecks backgrounds at intervals and may revoke the card and the deferred action, for instance if the agency withdraws its certification.
How long it takes
USCIS's historical data measure the I-918 from receipt to the bona fide determination review. The national median was 59.0 months in fiscal 2022, 46.1 in fiscal 2024, 26.3 in fiscal 2025, and 18.5 in fiscal 2026 through June 30. The figure for the second stage, from determination to a visa number, is published nowhere; USCIS's own FAQ says it lacks the data. With 10,000 numbers a year and a queue that has overflowed every year since 2010, the wait runs to years, and the bona fide determination is what most petitioners hold for most of it.
What changed in May
On May 8, 2026 USCIS issued Policy Alert PA-2026-01, moving deferred action into a new Part I of Volume 1 of the Policy Manual and calling it "an extraordinary use of prosecutorial discretion," to be considered only case by case, never for categories or groups unless a law or regulation requires it. General hardship "common to all aliens facing removal" is insufficient, and a pending benefit request by itself does not justify a grant.
For U petitioners the regulation does require deferred action on the waiting list, and the bona fide determination process still produces it, so the categorical language does not abolish either. The National Immigration Law Center's reading is that the manual now asks whether the petitioner has a bona fide petition pending or is otherwise eligible, that review will be stricter, and that the factors listed against a grant include prior immigration violations, an old removal order, inability to support oneself, and country-of-origin vetting concerns. Termination remains discretionary. The practical effect is that the bona fide determination, once a near-automatic consequence of a complete file, has acquired an adverse-factors stage.
The T visa
The T visa is governed by a final rule published April 30, 2024 at 89 FR 34864 and effective August 28, 2024, which moved the regulations to 8 CFR 214.200 through 214.216. A "severe form of trafficking" is sex trafficking induced by force, fraud or coercion, or involving a person under 18, or the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision or obtaining of a person for labor or services by force, fraud or coercion for the purpose of involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage or slavery. Two added definitions matter in practice. "Coercion" includes schemes intended to make a person believe that refusal would bring serious harm, and the abuse or threatened abuse of the legal process, meaning the use of any law, civil, criminal or administrative, for a purpose it was not designed for, to pressure someone to act.
The applicant must be physically present on account of the trafficking, must have complied with any reasonable request for assistance from law enforcement, and would suffer extreme hardship involving unusual and severe harm on removal. A victim under 18 at the time of an act of trafficking is exempt from the cooperation requirement, and a victim unable to cooperate because of physical or psychological trauma is excepted from it. The application is Form I-914. Its Supplement B, the law enforcement declaration, is, in the regulation's words, "optional evidence"; a grant of Continued Presence is evidence of cooperation; and USCIS, not the agency, decides whether the applicant is a victim.
Every T application receives a bona fide determination under 8 CFR 214.205: an initial review for completeness and background checks, then a written notice, consideration for deferred action, and adjudication of any I-765 filed under category (c)(40). A bona fide determination automatically stays any final removal order until the application is decided. The cap is 5,000 principals a year; derivatives are not counted. A principal granted T status receives a work permit with the approval, generated from the I-914 itself. The national median processing time for the I-914 was 28.6 months in fiscal 2026 through June 30, up from 20.8 in fiscal 2025 and 14.9 in fiscal 2024; unlike the U visa, that figure runs to a decision.
The green card
A U nonimmigrant adjusts under INA 245(m) and 8 CFR 245.24 after three years of continuous physical presence in U status, on a showing that presence is justified on humanitarian grounds, for family unity, or in the public interest. A T nonimmigrant adjusts under 245(l) and 8 CFR 245.23 after three years, or earlier once the investigation or prosecution is certified complete, with good moral character throughout; a single absence over 90 days or absences totaling more than 180 break the period. The I-485 is free for both, the public charge ground does not apply to either, and the confidentiality rule at 8 U.S.C. 1367 covers both petitions and their derivatives.
What to do
- Get the certification signed last. The Supplement B must be within six months of filing; assemble the rest of the file first and file within days of the signature.
- File the I-765 with the petition, under (c)(14) for U or (c)(40) for T. It costs nothing and turns the bona fide determination into a card without a second round.
- Treat the file as final. Since August 5 an incomplete initial filing can be denied outright; the personal statement, the certification and the abuse evidence go in together.
- Audit the adverse factors before filing: arrests, prior removal orders, prior immigration violations. Under the May policy they are now weighed at the bona fide stage, and a waiver on Form I-192 may be needed at the final one.
- For trafficking, document the coercion, including any threat to use immigration or criminal law to pressure the victim; the 2024 rule made that a defined form of coercion, and no police declaration is required.
- Calendar the three years from the grant, and file the I-485 before U status expires; the status extends automatically while it is pending.
The U visa was designed as a reward for cooperation with the police. In 2026 it functions as a queue, and the bona fide determination is the ticket that lets a person work while standing in it.