USCIS Opens the Humanitarian, Adjustment, Removing 

Conditions and Travel Documents (HART) Service Center 

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is announcing the opening of the Humanitarian, 

Adjustment, Removing Conditions, and Travel Documents (HART) Service Center, the sixth service center 

within its Service Center Operations (SCOPS) directorate, and the first to focus on humanitarian and other 

workload cases. 

HART will promote cohesive and consistent adjudicative operations, and its dedicated workforce will improve 

the quality and efficiency of our humanitarian caseload processing. This workforce will continue to receive 

the robust, specialized training currently provided to employees who are processing these forms. These 

applications and benefits affect the most vulnerable of noncitizens, and the opening of this service center will 

make a positive impact in the quality, timeliness, and scale of our humanitarian processing abilities. 

After a review of USCIS processing times, we deemed that the greater focus should be provided to these 

humanitarian-based benefits, which led to the creation of the HART Service Center. With HART, we are taking 

action to improve our service in partnership with community groups. In fact, the creation of HART is partially 

the result of the feedback we have received from our partnership with stakeholders and community groups. 

HART will initially exist as a hybrid service center, with virtual adjudication capabilities and coordination with 

existing service centers for certain administrative support. HART will ultimately transition to a 100% virtual 

service center with no geographic physical location, across multiple time zones. This center will be identified 

by the specialized work adjudicated by its staff and not by a brick-and-mortar facility or location. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HART will process both digital and paper-based applications and petitions and will partner with existing 

service centers to support physical onsite necessities such as file exchange and administrative support. 

The HART Service Center will initially focus on the following case types: 

• Form I-601A, Application for Provisional Unlawful Presence Waiver; 

• Bona Fide Determination (BFD) for Form I-918, Petition for U Nonimmigrant Status; 

• Form I-730, Refugee/Asylee Relative Petition; and 

• VAWA-based Form I-360, Petition for Amerasian, Widow(er), or Special Immigrant. 

The establishment of HART is associated with five hiring phases. We completed the first two phases of 

forming HART on Jan. 29, 2023, with internal reassignments and leadership details of approximately 150 

current SCOPS personnel. 

The third phase of internal reassignments is currently in process, pending onboarding and training. On Feb. 

28, HART was operational with 30% staffing levels and is currently staffed with 150 positions. Through this 

phased approach, HART will ultimately grow to 480 positions. Phase four is expected to begin in the coming 

weeks, with the posting of a public USCIS job notice that will seek to attract a pool of applicants from across 

the country with experience working with the vulnerable populations HART serves. Phase four hiring will 

focus on bringing staffing levels to 60%-85% of authorized positions by the end of FY 2023. We anticipate by 

the end of FY 2024, staffing levels will be at 95%-98% of authorized positions. These benchmarks will 

determine hiring and training which will ultimately establish HART as fully operational. 

Customer Service: Existing customer service channels will continue to be operational during this transition. 

Customer Service inquires for HART will be supported by the existing service centers. 

Address Changes: Address changes for VAWA-based Form I-360 and Form I-918 BFD will continue to be sent 

to the Vermont Service Center physical address for processing per the instructions on our website at 

uscis.gov/addresschange. 

Inquiries from Attorney and Accredited Representatives: Attorneys and accredited representatives may 

send inquiries to the same email boxes they have historically used, as these email addresses are not 

changing. Unrepresented petitioners and applicants may send signed written inquires/requests for 

biometrics appointments, including a new date/time or location, to the physical address found on our 

website. 

Filing Instructions: The transition to HART will not affect current filing instructions. Please continue to follow 

the filing instructions as indicated in the “where to file” section on each form type’s webpage. Any future 

changes to filing locations will be posted on webpages for each form and announced via alerts. To register for 

alerts and updates, please visit: uscis.gov/news/alerts. 

Public Engagement: HART leadership and staff will also focus on increased public engagement - including 

quarterly local and national engagements - with the stakeholder community that supports these applicants 

and petitioners. The first national webinar overview of the new HART Service Center is on Thursday, April 20, 

at 1 p.m. Eastern. 

For more information on how to participate in this and future engagements please visit the upcoming 

national engagements and local engagements webpages. 
 

 

More Information 

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Upcoming Engagements 

To view a list of upcoming local and national 

engagements, please visit uscis.gov/outreach. 

Information 

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please visit uscis.gov. 

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Contact Us 

Please do not reply to this message. Contact us at 

Public.Engagement@uscis.dhs.gov.