Northrop Grumman has been awarded a $357 M, indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), an agency within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), to continue providing biometric capture services in support of US citizenship applications and green card renewals. The contract is for one base year with four one-year options and has a potential value of $750 M over a five-year period.
Biometric capture services involve electronic scanning and recording of fingerprints and photograph and signature collection for identification purposes. The contract work will be performed in all 50 US states at 136 Application Support Centers (ASC), with possible future expansion overseas. Northrop Grumman has provided these services to USCIS since 1999. “Northrop Grumman is proud of its past performance and continued opportunity to significantly contribute to our nation’s homeland security,” said James Cameron, president of Northrop Grumman’s Technical Services sector. “Whether supporting our Department of Defense warfighters in the field or the Department of Homeland Security here in the United States, our goal remains the same: to provide innovative solutions and services to our valued customers.”
Under Northrop Grumman’s management of the biometric program, USCIS has reduced its fingerprint rejection rate from 20 to 1.5 percent, the lowest such rate at DHS. Rejections are caused by improper finger print recording. Factors that have led to the reduction in the reject rate include additional fingerprint technician training, the creation of a certification-training program for quality assurance and improvements USCIS made to the fingerprinting computer systems. Northrop Grumman’s teammates include USE Inc., Orlando, FL, Pinkerton Government Services Inc., Mansfield, MA, and International Organization for Migration, Geneva, Switzerland.