Unisys to Help Secure US Borders Under Integration Project
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), an agency within the Department of Homeland Security, awarded a contract to Unisys to build an advanced system to better identify people and vehicles entering and exiting the United States via its land borders with Mexico and Canada.
The Land Border Integration (LBI) contract has one firm fixed-price base period and four one-year options, which are exercisable at the sole discretion of the government. The value of the base period of the contract is approximately $29 million and the estimated value of each option year is approximately $25 million. The contract has a ceiling value of $350 million over five years, allowing for additional scope to be added at the government's discretion.
The new contract follows Unisys work on the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) contract, awarded in 2008. WHTI, which was implemented on June 1, 2009, at all land and sea ports of entry, uses automated license plate reader (LPR) technology to screen vehicles crossing the border, as well as radio frequency identification (RFID) technology to confirm citizenship and identity of travelers with WHTI-approved, RFID-enabled travel documents.
CBP and Unisys are capitalizing on the initial success, foundation and investment of the WHTI implementation and are expanding the project using innovative technologies and processes that will provide further efficiencies to land border protection. LPRs are the core technology component of the "triangle strategy," which leverages WHTI investments in inbound processing with outbound enforcement operations and Border Patrol checkpoints to ensure that information is available as needed at each point in the CBP process.
The U.S. General Services Administration recently recognized CBP and partner agencies for their work on WHTI with the 2010 Interagency Resources Management Conference (IRMCO) Team Award. CBP also recently received a 2010 Excellence.Gov Award from the American Council for Technology/Industry Advisory Council for significant improvements in mission delivery.