Fight continues for US VISIT contract

A second round of protests have been filed by BAE Systems and American Systems Corp. as they object to the awarding of a Homeland Security Department contract for a portion of the US VISIT contract.

US VISIT is DHS’s program to monitor non-U.S. citizens who are entering and exiting the United States.

Originally, US VISIT was a large, broad contract awarded to Accenture in 2004, but as it came up for a recompete, it has been broken into smaller portions.

American Systems and BAE were vying for biometric support services. In May 2013, DHS awarded the $58 million contract to Ideal Innovations Inc., according to Deltek.

American Systems and BAE protested that award, and DHS pulled back to decision to reevaluate, but both companies lost again and have filed new protests with the Government Accountability Office.

GAO has a deadline of May 19 to make a decision.

Among the services DHS wants under the contract are fingerprint analysis, fingerprint processing, fingerprint search and fingerprint card enrollment. The winning contractor also needs to support special projects and provide subject matter experts.