Science Applications International Corp

Science Applications International Corp(SAIC), headquartered in Reston, Va., is a technology company that provides information technology (IT), technical, and engineering services primarily to the U.S. government. Founded in 1969 and split into Leidos and SAIC in 2013, the company contracts primarily with U.S. military agencies. As of February 2024, nearly 52% of its total revenue derived from contracts with the Department of Defense (DOD).

SAIC is a key contractor for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its two agencies responsible for carrying out deportations and surveilling U.S. borders: Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Between 2004 and August 2024, the company held at least 41 contracts worth over $605.8 million with the agencies. Additionally, SAIC subsidiaries Engility (an engineering and logistics company acquired in 2019) and Unisys Federal (an IT security and services company acquired in 2020) previously held independent contracts with CBP and ICE, which were subsequently transferred to SAIC.

Since 2008, SAIC has supported CBP in developing, deploying, and maintaining over 700 license plate recognition (LPR) systems at more than 100 land border crossings and U.S. Border Patrol checkpoints in the U.S. CBP uses LPR tools along the U.S.–Mexico and Canada–U.S. borders to inspect every private car and commercial truck that enters the U.S. through land crossings.. In March 2024, SAIC announced that it has partnered with CBP to undertake a “sweeping technology modernization initiative” that will involve replacing all of the agency’s existing LPR systems.

SAIC provides CBP with IT and computer systems services for the agency’s Targeting and Analysis Systems Program Directorate (TAPSD): CBP’s “cornerstone system for identifying travelers and cargo that present a potential security threat to the country.” Under a 2021 contract valued at up to $701.5 million and set to end in 2025, SAIC is developing and deploying real-time data processing, cloud-based analytics, security systems, and artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning that will enable CBP agents to “flag shipments and travelers for additional examination and inspection.” This contract was previously held by Unisys until September 2021, when SAIC acquired Unisys’s federal contracting division.

TASPD is responsible for targeting and screening passengers and vehicles that cross U.S. borders and sharing passengers’ personal information with other countries via the Global Travel Assessment System (GTAS). It also administers the Analytical Framework for Intelligence (AFI), a system that provides “enhanced search and analytical capabilities to identify, apprehend, and prosecute individuals…and aids in the enforcement of customs, immigration, and other laws enforced by DHS at the border.” This system was a key tool in the ‘extreme vetting’ initiative planned by the Trump administration in 2017—only to be abandoned a year later. Palantir Technologies, responsible for developing key ICE systems, played a role in developing this data platform.

The AFI platform incorporates data from other CBP and DHS systems, including the Automated Targeting System (ATS), a risk management tool that compares traveler, cargo, and other information, including biometrics such as fingerprints and photographs, against law enforcement and intelligence databases.

Both SAIC and Unisys (before its federal division was acquired by SAIC) have provided IT services under EAGLE II, a government contracting vehicle that covers numerous DHS IT projects. Prior to the purchase of its federal contracting business by SAIC, Unisys was involved in developing CBP’s biometric entry/exit projects, which collect biographic and biometric data from persons crossing the U.S.–Mexico border, including facial recognition and iris images. Biometric Exit Mobile (BE-Mobile) smartphone devices and a related software application were used by CBP personnel to feed travelers’ biographic and biometric exit data into TASPD.

From 2009 to 2015, SAIC worked to develop information sharing capacity between ICE and local law enforcement agencies as part of ICE’s Secure Communities program, which was directly responsible for the deportation of some 450,000 people between 2008 and 2014. Secure Communities was a key factor in the Obama administration’s record number of deportations and in the expansion of ICE and local law enforcement collaboration, which immigrant rights organizations have characterized as the “polimigra.” The program was reactivated by the Trump administration in 2017 but suspended by the Biden administration in 2021.