Why would JP Morgan Chase have a US immigration system built rated at 10K applicants / hour

Why would JP Morgan Chase have a US immigration system built rated at 10K applicants / hour?

Background:

A friend of mine that used to work for Perot Systems (before Dell merger) was going through a divorce and rented the other bedroom during the Summer of 2011. We both work in the same industry and have worked for the same companies at different times in different capacities.

He’s lower on the totem pole but had a military background and I believe he had his “Secret” clearance up until a couple of years ago. One day, we were having a discussion and he brought up something that he said “scares the shit out of him” but had yet to see how it would affect him or the US or anyone. He went into his room and came back with a large manila envelope marked up with NDA restrictions from Perot Systems and JP Morgan Chase.

He pulled out the stack of papers and asked me if I had ever been tasked with working on the project, to which I replied that I hadn't nor had I been even aware of it. It was a bit strange since the group that I was in had full access to the data centers, 2 of which were located at the compound where we were based, and I had never heard of it. From what I could gather from him, it had been compartmentalized, and evidently rather effectively. Granted, it’s not like I had the time to research other projects, as I was a team lead and worked 60 hours a week, usually living out of hotel rooms when I wasn't building up their infrastructure back at our data centers.

In any case, he told me he had been tasked with working on the JP Morgan Chase project, specifically testing out the application infrastructure and its ability to meet the requirements. He handed me the stack of papers and asked me to read them first and then come to a conclusion of what it was for.


I looked through the project documentation and here’s a bullet point list of what I can recall:
• Client: JP Morgan Chase
• Separate NDA required to work on this project with all materials to be returned at project checkpoints
• Client requested Perot Systems to develop an application and all required infrastructure to manage paper based Immigration applications from non-US citizens applying for citizenship.
• The system needed to be able to handle 10,000 applications per hour.
• The application required an OCR component that would input the applicant’s response to certain sections of pages from their application and process it via a decision flowchart.
• The application would be either granted Approved, Denied, Need More Information / Human Review required.
The rest of the document was related to the technical aspects (hardware, software, databases, and middleware) required to support the application and its components.

Neither of us could come up with any reasonable explanation where this system would or could be used and why JP Morgan Chase would be responsible for the system other than the fact that they already have the infrastructure in place for credit cards and online financial transactions.

This friend left Perot Systems in the middle of 2008. I saw the project documentation in June 2011. I think it would be safe to say that the project has been completed and implemented for the client by now.

I’ve searched online at different points in time since then and still have not found any mention of this system or JPMC’s involvement. I find it curious that the US would be in any situation where it would need the ability to scan and approve so many applications for citizenship.

I have considered posting this for a while now, because I can see how this may be a piece of the overall larger puzzle that the timeline of events have presented for many.
I’m not really worried about any blowback at this point, since I wasn’t working for Perot Systems at the time I read the project documentation nor was I aware of it while I was there. I was long gone by the summer of 2011.

I DO NOT have the documentation to post up or to prove anything. I’ve posted just enough information to indicate who/what/when/where/why so that if someone had the ability, they could research for themselves without me putting anyone at risk.

I really don’t care if you believe me or not, but I felt that by putting it out there, others that can make more sense of it or have knowledge pertaining to it could post up. I am leaving out my opinion of how it could fit in because I’d rather wait and see what others far more knowledgeable than I might have to say about its relativity.