State Dept. adds $28 million to SI pact

The State Department has raised the ceiling on SI International's five-year contract for the National Visa Center to $88 million to run facilities that process permanent immigration visas.

Brad Antle, president and chief operating officer of the Reston, Va.-based company, said the additional money — $28 million — would be used to run two operating facilities: one in New Hampshire and the other in Kentucky.

"There is some automation and manual processing," Antle said. "It is still handling lots of pieces of paper."

The center is a State facility for foreigners who are granted permanent visas. More than 800,000 are approved annually, but many more are processed each year, he said.

The database for the center is part of State's consolidated database, Antle said. SI International runs the center's master database as well as other processing.