1.5.1_JAMON II LSJ Exceeding SAT FINAL HCA Approval_Redacted.pdf

Limited-Sources Justification, Exceeding the Simplified Acquisition Threshold, Joint Application Maintenance, Operations, and NextGen (JAMON) II

REFERENCE: Justification Log Number: FY24-0083 and PR Number: VER240038

1. Agency and Contracting Activity.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), Office of Contracting (OCON), proposes to award an Order, on behalf of the Office of Information

Technology (OIT) / Identity Records and National Security Division (IRNSD), pursuant to FAR

8.405-6, Limiting Sources.

2. Nature and/or description of the action being approved.

The proposed action is for a sole source order to Slalom, Inc., 821 Second Ave., Suite 1900, Seattle, WA 98104, through General Services Administration, Multiple Award Schedule (MAS), Category

54151S, Information Technology Professional Services, GS-35F-053GA. The award will be Firm

Fixed Price (FFP) for a base period of 6 months with 3 one-month options if needed.

3. Description of Supplies/Services.

Joint Application Maintenance, Operations, and NextGen (JAMON) II will consist of teams to provide development, security, and operations (DevSecOps) services to support USCIS Information

Technology (IT) system delivery, primarily Verification Information System (VIS). The teams will be performing operations and maintenance activities and modernizing complex, large-scale, Internet-facing websites and IT systems in a cloud environment using forward-thinking, modern, open-source technologies and managed cloud services with heavy customer engagement.

Period PoP Duration Total

Base Period 6 Months

Option 1 1 Month

Option 2 1 Month

Option 3 1 Month

Total

4. Authority and supporting rationale.

This acquisition is conducted under the authority of Multiple-Award Schedule Program, 41 U.S.C.

152(3), Competitive Procedures, and 40 U.S.C. 501, Services for Executive Agencies. Pursuant to

FAR 8.405-6(a), the circumstance that justifies limiting sources to fewer than those required by FAR

8.405-1 and 8.405-2 is:

www.uscis.gov

Rev: 10/13/2023

Limited-Sources Justification, Exceeding the SAT, Joint Application Maintenance, Operations, and

NextGen (JAMON) II

Justification Log Number: FY24-0083

☒ FAR 8.405-6 (a)(1)(i)(B) Only one source is capable of providing the supplies or services required at the level of quality required because the supplies or services are unique or highly specialized.

Rationale:

E-Verify, SAVE (Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements), the main VIS components, are a nationally accessible resource of selected immigration status information containing more than 100 million records and serves as the single database that stores records and captures statistical information associated with the verification process. The verification process allows federal, state, and local benefit-granting agencies to verify a benefit applicant’s immigration status or naturalized/derived citizenship and employers to confirm the eligibility of their employees to work in the United State. SAVE is accessed over 370,000 times a week by government agencies. Without providing the necessary performance needed during the re-competition, the Verification program could experience severe outages and degraded services, due to upgrades and required maintenance need to keep the system and its interoperability working with other agencies as they make updates to their systems. The VIS system must be accessible 24 hours a day, seven days a week by federal, state, and local benefit-granting agencies who would not be able to verify a benefit applicant’s immigration status or naturalized/derived citizenship. Any outage to the SAVE or E-Verify systems would impact the issuing of state driver’s licenses, state and federal food assistance, state and federal education assistance, state and federal housing assistance and state and federal healthcare assistance to hundreds of thousands of applicants daily. E-Verify, an internet-based system in partnership with the Social Security Administration, provides companies and federal contractors a way to verify the legal status and employment eligibility of an individual. E-Verify is accessed over a million times a week for employment verification. If E-Verify is inaccessible, companies would not be able to verify employment status and run the risk of hiring someone illegally, effecting US citizens employment, or not employing someone who is eligible for work within the United States. Executive Order 12989 directs all federal departments and agencies to require contractors to use an electronic employment eligibility verification system to verify the employment eligibility of employees performing work under a covered federal contract. FAR Subpart 22.1802 requires that Federal contractors must enroll and use E-Verify to verify employment eligibility of all new hires.

There is an urgent need for continued VIS support from a vendor with DevSecOps maturity.

For more than 4.5 years, Slalom has accumulated the institutional knowledge to support the VIS tasks and has been providing, and is still providing, the expertise specific to VIS that will allow it to provide the urgently needed services while the Agency re-competes the requirement. Awarding an

Order to Slalom, a DevSecOps mature contractor with VIS personnel and expertise already on board, is the only reasonable solution to avoid an interruption in these critical services until resolution of the GAO protest and FALCON can be awarded.

From 2019 to March 2023, VIS support was provided by Slalom as the prime contractor, under task order 70SBUR19F00000029. In September 2022, a competitive award was made to A Square

Group to provide VIS support under the VIPER (Verification Information Program Engineering

Resources) contract, 70SBUR22F00000166. Due to performance issues VIPER was allowed to end

Limited-Sources Justification, Exceeding the SAT, Joint Application Maintenance, Operations, and

NextGen (JAMON) II

Justification Log Number: FY24-0083 requiring an urgent sole source bridge contract to Slalom (JAMON) to maintain daily operations and continued focus on mission critical systems while the Agency competed a new requirement

(FALCON).

The Fast Agile Lifecycle for Continuous Verification Operations and NextGen (FALCON) was awarded on May 16, 2024; however, a GAO protest was issued on May 28, 2024, and a stop work order was issued on FALCON until the protest can be resolved. The protest is estimated to be finalized by September 5, 2024. Even after the protest is resolved, a transition period for the new contractor will be necessary due to the EOD process of on-boarding staff and the complexity of VIS.

There are ten (10) discrete work streams connected to E-Verify and SAVE that require at least a three (3) month transition to a new contractor. Without award of this requirement before July 11, 2024, the Agency would unacceptably be without VIS support risking significant impact to the public that utilizes both SAVE and E-Verify. Federal, state, and local agencies would not be able to determine if the individual was eligible for the benefits or license they applied for. Contractors could not validate if an employee is eligible to work. The issuing of state driver’s licenses, state and federal food assistance, state and federal education assistance, state and federal housing assistance and state and federal healthcare assistance to hundreds of thousands of applicants daily would stop.

5. Determination by the ordering activity contracting officer that the anticipated order represents the best value consistent with FAR 8.404(d).

The contracting officer has determined that issuing the proposed task order to Slalom LLC for the continued performance of JAMON under this bridge effort represents the best value and will result in the lowest overall cost, considering price and administrative costs, to meet the Government’s needs. This order will be placed in accordance with FAR 8.404, “Use of Federal Supply Schedules.”

The General Services Administration (GSA) has already negotiated fair and reasonable pricing rates.

Discounts to these GSA schedule rates will be requested. Based on previous contracts for similar work, historical pricing will be utilized to determine price fair and reasonableness.

6. A description of the market research conducted among schedule holders and the results, or a statement of the reason market research was not conducted.

The market research conducted for the VIPER and JAMON awards were reviewed and there are several companies, both large and small, capable of providing agile development services. Slalom is the only known provider who can provide the necessary services to run and support VIS immediately and without a transition period, which is typically three (3) months. The VIS system requires a company that has the capability to not only provide agile development services and the associated skillsets required, but also provide the ability to plan and lead across several integrated products within VIS and manage interdependencies of multiple agile development teams.

7. Any other facts supporting the limited-sources justification.

Given the nature of DevSecOps requirements it is imperative that the immigration status and eligibility for our Agency not be interrupted and be awarded to Slalom to ensure the mission gets accomplished. Slalom has shown they possess the institutional knowledge to support the VIS tasks