(FLORIDA) — Floridians waiting for family-based Green Cards remain part of a nationwide backlog that reaches into the millions, with the longest delays falling on applicants born in Mexico and the Philippines in some family preference categories.

Family-based visa waits turn on two variables in the data provided here: the preference category and the applicant’s country of birth. In the most delayed categories, the line now stretches for decades.

The U.S. State Department places the family-based immigration backlog at nearly 4 million people waiting abroad. That count does not include relatives already in the United States who are adjusting status.

A broader estimate from Cato puts the family-and-employment Green Card backlog at about 9 million. Within that figure, 7.5 million benefit from family petitions, and 3.8 million are already approved but still wait-listed because of annual caps.

Those national figures frame the reality for families in Florida. People in the state waiting to reunite with relatives through family-based Green Cards are in the same federal queue that governs applications across the country, and the delay can look very different depending on the visa class involved.

The longest waits in the material provided fall on applicants born in Mexico in the F3 and F4 categories. As of April 2026, those waits stood at about 25 years.

Applicants born in the Philippines also faced long delays in those same categories. As of April 2026, the wait was around 21 years in F3 and 19 years in F4.

The contrast within the family system is sharp. F2A visas, which cover spouses and minor children of lawful permanent residents, currently have short waits and are near current for all countries, including Mexico and the Philippines.

That split leaves families in very different positions even when they are pursuing the same broad goal of permanent residence. A spouse or minor child in F2A faces a far shorter line than relatives in categories such as F3 or F4, where applicants from Mexico and the Philippines have some of the longest waits listed in the material.

The category labels matter because the backlog is not one uniform queue. Wait times vary across F1, F2A, F2B, F3 and F4, and the delay also changes by country of birth.

That country-based variation appears clearly in the latest snapshot cited here. Mexico posts the longest waits in the delayed family preference classes identified, while the Philippines also shows long lines, though shorter than Mexico’s in the two categories listed.

Florida’s role in the story comes through population and participation rather than a separate state-run system. The backlog does not operate differently for Florida applicants; people in the state stand inside the same national structure that produces short waits in some categories and multi-decade delays in others.

The distinction between people waiting abroad and those adjusting status inside the United States also shapes how the numbers should be read. The State Department figure of nearly 4 million covers those outside the country and excludes relatives already in the United States seeking to adjust status.

Cato’s higher estimate serves a different purpose. Its figure of about 9 million spans both family and employment backlogs, with family petitions making up 7.5 million of that total and 3.8 million representing people already approved but still waiting because annual caps limit how many visas can be issued.

Read together, the two counts describe a system under pressure at more than one stage. One measure captures a large pool of people waiting abroad in the family-based line, while the other captures a wider Green Card queue that includes approved applicants who still cannot move forward because of numerical limits.

Mexico stands out most sharply in the family preference categories identified in the material. A wait of about 25 years in both F3 and F4 means applicants in those lines are dealing with timelines measured not in months, but in generations of family planning.

The Philippines follows with its own long delays. Around 21 years in F3 and 19 years in F4, as of April 2026, still place those applicants in some of the slowest-moving family-based queues described here.

By comparison, the current status of F2A shows that not every family-based case moves at the same pace. Spouses and minor children of lawful permanent residents, including those from Mexico and the Philippines, face a category that is described as short and near current.

That difference has practical consequences for how families read the Visa Bulletin and judge their place in line. An applicant’s prospects turn not on the broad label of family immigration alone, but on the exact visa category tied to the family relationship and the country of birth attached to the case.

Applicants and relatives tracking family-based Green Cards often start with the wrong comparison, measuring their case against the system as a whole instead of the preference class that controls it. The material here points in the other direction: the category is central, and so is the country chargeability reflected in the Visa Bulletin data.

That is why the same national backlog can produce two very different experiences for families in Florida. One household may see movement in a near-current F2A case, while another dealing with F3 or F4 and a birth country such as Mexico or the Philippines faces a line counted in decades.

The numbers also show why broad references to “the Green Card backlog” can obscure more than they reveal. The backlog includes people abroad and, in the wider estimate, people in both family and employment channels; it also includes applicants already approved who remain stuck because annual caps keep visa numbers limited.

Within that larger picture, family petitions account for most of the backlog in Cato’s estimate. Its count of 7.5 million family-based beneficiaries places relatives at the center of the queue, while the figure of 3.8 million approved but wait-listed applicants shows how approval does not end the wait.

Florida families deciding what comes next have only a narrow set of useful benchmarks in the information provided here. The first is the exact family visa category tied to the petition. The second is the country of birth used for Visa Bulletin purposes.

From there, the most relevant next step is to monitor Visa Bulletin updates and track the categories that match the case, especially across F1, F2A, F2B, F3 and F4. The latest snapshot cited here shows short waits for F2A and much longer waits for Mexico and the Philippines in F3 and F4 as of April 2026.

For many families, that means the headline number is less useful than the line item that applies to their petition. In the same national system, one category sits near current, while another leaves applicants from Mexico waiting about 25 years and applicants from the Philippines waiting around 21 years or 19 years, depending on the family preference class.