U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) opened a new service center. The Humanitarian, Adjustment, Removing Conditions, and Travel Documents (HART) center will focus on humanitarian and workload cases. The new center is the result of a USCIS review of processing times for humanitarian petitions. They found a need to open a new center with a workforce focused on improving efficiency and quality processing for qualifying petitions. The HART center will be a hybrid facility, for now. They will support virtual petitions, working in cooperation with in-person service sites, as well as offer limited in-person options. Eventually, the HART center will be 100% virtual, available to interact across multiple time zones.
The HART center will work in cooperation with other service centers and work on both paper-based and digital applications and petitions. For the initial period, HART will support the following:
- Form I-730, Refugee/Asylee Relative Petitions
- Form I-601A, Application for Provisional Unlawful Presence Waiver
- VAWA-based Form I-360
- Form I-918, Bona Fide Determination (BFD), U Nonimmigrant Status Petition
Staffing at HART is currently estimated at 150 individuals, an estimated 30% of the total planned. Active efforts are ongoing to hire and train a full staff of 480 trained individuals. It’s estimated that it will be the end of FY2024 when that target is reached.
The opening of the new center does not currently affect any existing customer service channels. Mailing addresses for VAWA-based Form I-360 and Form I-918 BFD, interactions with an attorney or other accredited representatives, questions from applicants or unrepresented petitions, will continue as they are until further notice. No changes to filing instructions have been made at this point. People should continue to monitor any updates to their petition type on the USCIS website or with their immigration attorney.
If you have questions on any immigration-related issue or the new HART service center, please contact us. We actively monitor ongoing updates to ensure our clients get the proper guidance.