Has anyone else felt completely stuck after their case was marked “actively reviewed” for months, where nothing changes online, your lawyer says everything looks fine, and you’re left wondering whether USCIS is actually doing anything at all or if your file is just sitting untouched somewhere with no way for you to know?

Yeah, that situation is extremely common and honestly one of the most frustrating parts of the process. “Actively reviewed” doesn’t mean someone is constantly working on your case, it usually just means it’s in a queue waiting for the next step, and even when your lawyer says everything looks good it can still sit untouched for a long time because of workload and internal priorities. Unfortunately there’s no real visibility into what’s happening behind the scenes, so it often feels like nothing is happening even when the case is technically moving at USCIS’s pace.