One-Year Anniversary of the Humanitarian, Adjustment, Removing Conditions, and Travel Documents (HART) Service Cente

This month marks the one-year anniversary of the Humanitarian, Adjustment, Removing Conditions, and Travel Documents (HART) Service Center. The HART Service Center is the sixth service center within USCIS’ Service Center Operations Directorate (SCOPS) and the first to focus on humanitarian and other workloads. 

The HART Service Center was created to prioritize and enhance processing of humanitarian caseloads within USCIS and to reduce backlogs associated with these forms. By centralizing humanitarian form types, the HART Service Center promotes cohesive and consistent adjudications, while a dedicated workforce improves the quality and efficiency of our humanitarian caseload processing. These applications and benefits affect the most vulnerable noncitizens, and the HART Service Center positively impacts the quality, timeliness, and scale of our humanitarian processing abilities.

In this first year, the HART Service Center has many accomplishments. 

Process Improvements

• Decreased the Form I-601A, Application for Provisional Unlawful Presence Waivers (Form I-601A), backlog by more than 5,000 cases since the start of fiscal year (FY) 2024. 
• Significantly reduced the backlog for Form I-730, Refugee/Asylee Relative Petitions (Form I-730), that have been pending over 90 days to under 200 cases. 
• Focused on third-party scanning for Form I-918, Petition for U Nonimmigrant Status (Form I-918) and Form I-730 to make operations at the HART Service Center fully electronic and fully remote for these caseloads. 

Staffing 
The HART Service Center exceeded its goal of being 60-85% staffed for FY 2023 by onboarding 379 employees, bringing staffing levels to 86%. The HART Service Center anticipates being 95-98% staffed by quarter 2, ahead of our goal of reaching this staffing level by the end of FY 2024. A specially trained and dedicated workforce will improve the quality of processing humanitarian caseloads and ensure our services are helping stabilize vulnerable populations and improve consistency in adjudications. 

Training
As of March 2024, 322 employees have completed HART Service Center operations training on victim awareness and secondary trauma, and training on Form I-360, Petition for Amerasian, Widow(er), or Special Immigrant, for VAWA self-petitioners; Form I-601A; Form I-730; and bona fide determinations (BFDs) and waiting list determinations for Form I-918. Our experienced adjudicating officers have made this possible through their dedication not only to their own work, but through their coaching and mentoring of our new employees in addition to completing adjudications. 

Adjudicative Efficiency
We are already seeing an increase in production and completions with some of the form types adjudicated at the HART Service Center. In just the first four months of FY 2024, the HART Service Center has: 

• Completed 12,880 Forms I-601A in the first four months of FY 2024, compared with 9,080 in FY 2023; 
• Completed 37,363 BFDs for Form I-918 in the first four months of FY 2024, compared to 31,833 in FY 2023; and 
• Completed 54,755 of all form types in the first four months of FY 2024, compared to 68,181 in FY 2023. 

More Information 
We invite you to attend our national engagement on the one-year anniversary of the HART Service Center on Wednesday, March 27 from 1-2 pm Eastern. You can also review our new Frequently Asked Questions. 

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