http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/feb/21/dhs-rushing-amnesty-contracts-at-full-throttle-pac/ By Kellan Howell - The Washington Times - Saturday, February 21, 2015
A government watchdog says the Obama administration is continuing to award multi-million-dollar contracts to firms to quickly process millions of illegal immigrants, despite a federal court’s decision to put a stay on the president’s amnesty order.
A Request for Proposal was recently posted in the government’s official database for federal contracts and comes from the Department of Homeland Security agency charged with processing visa and naturalization petitions, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). The complex contract is being pushed at a “full-throttle pace,” a government source told Judicial Watch on Friday.
A federal judge in Texas issued an order this week that halts the president’s plan to shield millions of illegal immigrants from deportation and bans DHS and USCIS from executing the amnesty order.
Hours after Judicial Watch published its original report of the contract on Friday, the government cancelled the Request for Proposal.
The RFP estimated that the population of potential requesters for the president’s deferred action will be “approximately four million people” and that USCIS anticipates the initial filing of “approximately five to six million forms” related to the amnesty order, Judicial Watch reported.
Judicial Watch said the work, which calls for 200 to 600 contractors, was set to begin in mid-March and the contractor would operate out of a new center in Arlington, Virginia to accommodate the “additional volume of work.”
The proposal would cost enormous sums of tax dollars. The pricing spreadsheets listed tens of thousands of works hours — for tasks such as program management, file operations and maintenance as well as Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) scanning.
The administration does not appear to be slowing down on its efforts to implement the executive actions as the Justice Department drafts an appeal.
“There is no indication that the court order has impacted, slowed down or modified the procurement in any way,” the source told Judicial Watch. “They’re really rushing into it.”
