IV. Omega Stations Three Law Enforcement / Intelligence SMEs at
.... USG Fusion Centers on behalf of ICE VSP

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement / Office of International Affairs / Visa Security Program (VSP), is responsible for securing the United States' visa issuance process to ensure that terrorists and criminals do not get visas. Through VSP, ICE assigns agents to overseas embassies and consulates to scrutinize select visa applicants, advise the Department of State on visa applicants who should be denied, begin investigations, and initiate a range of appropriate law enforcement and counter-terrorism measures to address the underlying threat that a given visa applicant may represent. ICE believes that simply denying a visa is not enough - to address the threat, additional steps are needed. VSP's work leads to such outcomes as: the denial of a visa, the initiation of a domestic or overseas law enforcement investigation, prosecution, the watchlisting of newly-identified terrorists, the referral of leads to other entities, and the development of intelligence.

Congress recently directed and funded ICE to establish a Unit within VSP dedicated to the Security Advisory Opinion (SAO) process for visa applicants. The SAO process is implemented by State to provide a special, additional security review of select visa applicants who meet certain criteria. Through the SAO process, an embassy / consulate refers a visa application to State's domestic SAO Unit, which coordinates an additional level of scrutiny. That scrutiny involves, at minimum, an FBI name check, but may involve more in-depth vetting by a number of federal departments depending on the circumstances of the applicant / application. The interdepartmental review is intended to determine whether the applicant would pose a threat (of varying types - from the threat of industrial espionage and illegal technology transfer to terrorism) to the United States, if granted a visa.

Omega is teaming with IBM to support the assessment of the new SAO mandate. ICE will facilitate VSP's examination of the SAO process and the roles of other departments to determine VSP's appropriate role / level of engagement in the process and the recommended profile of the new SAO Unit within VSP. In accordance, past experience and extensive liaison with the U.S. Government's national security information (NSI) fusion centers, i.e. CTC, NCTC, FTTTF is essential and Omega is supplying extremely experienced and accomplished personnel with the requisite extensive backgrounds in CT, FCI, immigration fraud and the spectrum of criminal investigations. The OSS personnel will advise ICE on how best it may engage in the vetting process, given its mission and mandate, as well as obtain actionable intelligence in order to coordinate VSP efforts on specific cases.

OMEGA…THE LAST WORD IN HOMELAND SECURITY SUPPORT