EGIS III_RFI_Final_20260313.pdf

EGIS III: RFI 70SBUR26I00000011 Page 1

Department of Homeland Security (DHS)

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)

Enterprise Gateway & Integration Services (EGIS III)

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI) 70SBUR26I00000011

1. Sources Sought Notice

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), a component of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), oversees lawful immigration to the United States.

The USCIS Office of Information Technology (OIT), Applied Technology Division (ATD), Distributed Services Architecture Branch (DSAB), is conducting market research to identify qualified industry partners capable of delivering advanced enterprise integration, cloud-native engineering, cybersecurity, agile and DevSecOps services in support of mission-critical operations.

This Request for Information (RFI) is issued solely for informational and planning purposes to support acquisition strategy development for the next-generation Enterprise Gateway & Integration Services (EGIS III) contract.

This RFI is issued solely for informational and planning purposes and does not constitute an Invitation for Bids, Request for Proposal, Request for Quotation or obligation on the part of USCIS to issue an RFQ or award a contract. Should a solicitation be issued, USCIS may use the new FAR 8.4 procedures for Ordering under the Federal Supply Schedule, which follow the ordering procedures established by GSA in GSAM/R Subpart 538.71. This RFI invites respondents to submit a response to assist USCIS in conducting market research in accordance with FAR 10. Please note, USCIS may use the results of this RFI to help determine who can meet the need and will receive a copy of the RFQ in accordance with the procedures at GSAM/R Subpart 538.7103-3(a)(2). The government reserves the right, but is not required, to send the RFQ to those who do not respond to this RFI.

Additionally, the U.S. Government will not provide reimbursement for any information that may be submitted in response to this RFI. Respondents are solely responsible for all expenses associated with responding to this RFI.

Responses will not be returned, and individual feedback will not be provided.

Information received may be used to refine acquisition strategy, contract structure, evaluation criteria, and performance-based metrics.

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1.1 Strategic Context

Historically, EGIS has served as the enterprise integration backbone connecting USCIS internal systems with DHS components, interagency partners, and authorized external entities.

EGIS III will expand this role supporting national security, immigration system integrity, and advanced adjudication operations.

Key mission areas include:

• National security vetting and evolving immigration policies

• Screening immigration benefit applicants

• Protecting immigration benefits and work authorization integrity

• Advanced data integration, analytics, AI-enabled anomaly detection, and decision support

• Agility, rapid delivery, operational excellence, transparency, and reduced duplication

• Fraud detection, risk scoring, and investigative data workflows

EGIS III represents a strategic shift from infrastructure integration to enabling mission outcomes.

2. Scope of Requirements

EGIS III supports multiple enterprise services and more than hundred microservices across

USCIS.

The Contractor will provide comprehensive IT services to design, develop, modernize, enhance, optimize, secure, operate, and maintain a cloud-hosted integration platform for secure information exchange between USCIS systems, DHS components, federal agencies, and authorized external partners.

The objectives of the EGIS III contract are to:

• Provide IT professional services including program management, systems development, systems modernization and optimization, security, architecture, infrastructure, operation and maintenance to support USCIS mission through information sharing and data exchange

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• Ensure compliance with existing and new regulations and applicable executive orders on immigration

• Increase data integrity, enable faster adjudication, improve service reliability, increase customer satisfaction, enable greater transparency to increase confidence in USCIS benefit adjudications

• Reduce cyber risk, enable continuous compliance and zero trust readiness and improve EGIS security posture against complex cyber threats

• Minimize downtime through proactive maintenance, strengthen performance monitoring and data quality and enable enterprise visibility with distributed tracing to accelerate failure detection and response.

• Increase Financial efficiency, reduce duplication and rework, and lower technical debt for effective cost reduction

• Encourage innovation and use of machine language and AI to detect anomalies in data, enable forecasting and performance optimization to promote data driven decision support

• Enhance performance, reliability and mission delivery for enhanced customer experience and satisfaction

DSAB focuses on DevSecOps tools and strategies to deliver superior IT services and support for integrated enterprise systems, and enable secure data exchanges supporting investigations, adjudications, and enforcement actions.

Example systems and capabilities include:

• Vetting platforms for immigration benefits

• Integration of interagency data sources

• Advanced orchestration of identity, biometric, and case data

• Secure data exchanges for investigations, adjudications, and enforcement

To the maximum extent practicable, USCIS intends for contractor performance to be measured by delivered capabilities and outcomes, not staffing levels.

Expected delivery practices include:

• Agile and iterative delivery with frequent releases

• Secure-by-design and zero-trust principles

• Compliance with NIST Risk Management Framework (RMF), Section 508, and federal security requirements

• DevSecOps, observability and continuous monitoring

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• Data governance and quality controls

• Cloud native architecture and performance engineering

• Support for independent testing, validation, and user acceptance

• Continuous performance and reliability improvements

3. Internal Processing and Adjudication Modernization

EGIS III will increasingly support internal USCIS mission systems, including adjudication, intake, case management, verification, and benefit processing platforms.

Examples include:

• Integration support for ELIS and successor systems

• Secure orchestration of intake, scanning, and workflow services

• High-volume, event-driven data exchanges supporting adjudications

• Real-time validation, enrichment, and decision-support services

• Operational surge resilience (e.g., H-1B cap season, Affordable Care Act season, humanitarian crises, policy-driven workload spikes)

The platform must demonstrate elasticity, scalability, and performance predictability under peak transactional loads.

4. Core Platform Capabilities (Continued and Enhanced)

EGIS III will sustain and enhance enterprise integration capabilities while expanding into strategic modernization areas.

Enterprise Integration & Orchestration

• Content routing and transformation

• Event-driven and streaming architecture

• Contract-driven APIs

• High-throughput, low-latency passthrough services

• Standardized enterprise interfaces

Cloud-Native & DevSecOps Enablement

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• Microservices-based architecture

• Infrastructure as Code

• Automated provisioning and configuration management

• Secure CI/CD with integrated security testing

• Continuous compliance and policy-as-code

Data Integrity & Governance

• API governance and schema management

• Contract-based testing

• End-to-end data lineage and auditability

• Secure integration with internal and external partners

• Support for AI-ready data architectures and secure data pipelines

5. Emerging Capabilities and Innovation Focus

EGIS III will require emerging capabilities to drive innovations, including but not limited to:

• AI/ML-enabled anomaly detection and predictive analytics

• Advanced targeting and risk-scoring platforms

• Secure investigative data pipelines

• Event-driven and serverless architectures

• Intelligent automation supporting adjudications

• AI-assisted case processing

• Real-time fraud detection and decision-support platforms

• Data Interoperability

These capabilities are critical to ensuring EGIS III remains at the forefront of innovation and operational effectiveness.

6. Enterprise DevSecOps and Continuous Compliance

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Vendors should demonstrate the ability to operate within a unified USCIS DevSecOps environment led by Office of Chief Technical Officer (OCTO) and Office of Information Tehcnology (OIT) and supporting the followings:

• Unified USCIS CI/CD pipeline

• Integrating EGIS services into managed deployment framework

• Enabling self-certification and continuous compliance monitoring

• Automating security, quality and compliance checks

• Enforcing container standards, image hygiene and code quality

• Aligning with enterprise logging, monitoring and audit requirements

• Collaborating with OCTO and OIT on tooling and governance

• Providing metrics on deployment volume, compliance status and security

• Demonstrating return on investment through automation, quality, security and reduced overhead

7. Information Sought

For the following topics please share examples of your corporate experience and if available past performance to support your responses. For referenced experience, provide contract numbers, identification as a Prime or Subcontractor, percentage of work performed, contract values, performance period, number of staff involved, contract duration and the performance rating received (if available).

1. Describe your experience designing, implementing, and operating large-scale microservice platforms for mission-critical transactions. Include metrics such as number of services, daily transactions, uptime targets, and key integrations. Explain your strategies for reliability, security, high availability, fault-isolation, and recovery.

Also, detail your experience running microservices on container orchestration platforms, including zero downtime deployments, rollbacks, capacity planning, and auto scaling during traffic spikes.

2. Describe your experience building CI/CD pipelines to support agile development and frequent releases. Explain how you incorporate security, dependency checks, supply chain risk controls, automation, and compliance. List the metrics you use to track code quality, deployment frequency, and system stability.

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3. Describe your experience securing high-sensitivity systems, including vulnerability management, patching, monitoring, incident response, and access control. Discuss your experience implementing zero trust architecture and the main challenges faced.

4. Describe your approach to designing and operating AI or machine learning solutions for mission-critical systems. Explain how these solutions enable anomaly detection, forecasting, optimization, and data-driven decisions across high-volume APIs and event streams, including your approach to governance.

5. Describe your experience supporting systems that use relational databases and connect to enterprise data lakes. Explain how you ensure data integrity, consistency, and performance at scale. Summarize your experience with database migration and maintaining backward compatibility in production environments.

6. What sets your organization apart from other vendors in supporting large, high-sensitivity platforms? Provide examples of modernizing legacy systems or optimizing complex systems without disrupting mission operations, including scale, approach, and measurable outcomes.

7. How does your organization manage subject matter experts and engineering teams across multiple concurrent enterprise projects? Please describe your staffing model, including recruitment, onboarding timelines, retention rates and typical ramp up time for new hires. Also explain your approach to managing attrition and scaling staff to meet changing mission requirements while maintaining highly skilled personnel.

8. Response Instructions

1. Responses are due by 10:00 AM Eastern Time (ET) on March 30, 2026.

2. Responses shall be submitted in MS Word or PDF format.

3. Responses shall be submitted via email to the following addresses with an email subject line of: RFI 70SBUR26I00000011, [insert vendor name]

i. Patrick.C.Gadwah@uscis.dhs.gov

ii. Sieanna.R.Seward@uscis.dhs.gov

iii. Melissa.A.Blondin@uscis.dhs.gov

4. Responses shall be no more than nine (9) pages including graphics. Submissions exceeding nine (9) pages in total may not be reviewed. Proprietary information, if mailto:Patrick.C.Gadwah@uscis.dhs.gov mailto:Sieanna.R.Seward@uscis.dhs.gov mailto:Melissa.A.Blondin@uscis.dhs.gov

EGIS III: RFI 70SBUR26I00000011 Page 8 any, should be minimized and must be clearly marked. To aid the Government in managing proprietary information, please segregate it. Please be advised that all submissions become Government property and will not be returned.

5. In your response, provide the following additional information:

i. RFI # 70SBUR26I00000011

ii. Company Name, Address, Contact Person Information (including telephone number and email address)

iii. Vendor’s Unique Entity Identifier (UEI)

iv. Business Size and Size Standard / Classification related to North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code 541512;

v. Identify your business size, number of full-time employees and whether you are a large, or small business: HUBZone small business;

service-disabled, veteran-owned small businesses; 8(a) small business;

women-owned small business; and/or small disadvantaged business.

vi. Please identify DHS-specific or Government Wide Acquisition Contracts that you currently hold (including your contract numbers, current performance period of that contract, and your business size under each contract) that could be used to procure these services.

vii. Are you interested in this opportunity as a prime contractor, subcontractor or part of a teaming arrangement? If so, please identify your team and specify your role.

Closing Statement

EGIS III represents a strategic transformation of USCIS enterprise services—from integration infrastructure to mission-enabling digital capabilities that directly support national security vetting, immigration benefit integrity, and lawful adjudication outcomes.

USCIS seeks industry insight to inform the development of a performance-based contract capable of delivering secure, resilient, innovative, and outcome-driven enterprise integration services aligned with DHS strategic priorities.

This RFI is for informational and planning purposes and does not constitute an Invitation for Bids, Request for Proposals, or Request for Quotations.