USCIS announced on October 17 the creation of a new customer service initiative to improve the processing of H-2A (Temporary/seasonal agricultural worker) petitions. USCIS intends to initiate a series of measures to streamline the H-2A process. The first of these will be to establish a special USCIS unit dedicated solely to processing H-2A petitions at their California Service Center. That service center has established specific mailing addresses to be used for all H-2A petition filings. Effective immediately, it is suggested that petitioners use the following addresses when they submit H-2A petitions (note: this change will become required when USCIS publishes a notice in the Federal Register):

Direct Mail:
U. S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
California Service Center
ATTN: H-2A Processing Unit
P.O. BOX 10140
Laguna Niguel, CA 92607-1040


Private Courier mail:
U. S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
California Service Center
ATTN: H-2A Processing Unit
24000 Avila Road, Room 2312
Laguna Niguel, CA 92677

USCIS suggests that petitioners mark the outside of their envelopes with the text, “H-2A” and to attach a sheet of paper with those same words to the top of the petition package. This, USCIS notes, will ensure speedy identification of H-2A petitions to be separately processed by the newly created, special processing unit. All petitions received at other service centers (until the mandatory date) will be forwarded to the California Service Center for processing.