Citizenship and Immigration Services wants to replace the current immigration system — most forms are paper-based, and CIS frequently mails documents around the country — with an electronic system.
But not as quickly as it hoped.
The agency awarded a five-year, $500 million contract to IBM last month; this week, Accenture decided to protest the bid. A final decision on the protest is expected by March, according to the Government Accountability Office.
“The protest is still very basic.. they haven’t really fleshed it out to any degree,” said Michael Aytes, acting deputy director at CIS. “While it’s in protest… we’re going to use the time to develop our requirements.”
The final contractor, whoever it is, will develop a system that lets adjudicators make immigration decisions on the Web, instead of on paper.
