President. I was in Douglas. AZ. just about a week ago. in fact. a week ago yesterday. and visited with community leaders and with Immigration and Naturalization Service employees. The situation In Douglas is extraordinary. to say the least. with thousands of illegal entrants into the country every month. As a matter of fact. in the first 2 months of this year already. more people had been apprehended than in all of last year. What has happened is that as the INS has put more agents in Texas and in the San Diego area of California. the illegal Immigration naturally shifted to Arizona. first the port of Nogales. where last year that was the hottest spot in Arizona. Now. with more agents having been put in Nogales the people are moving from there. east. to Douglas and crossing the border in that very small community. As a result. it is very. very important that there be additional support provided for the Immigration and Naturalization Service in the Douglas area. including the addition of more agents. I note that at the moment. there are some 60 temporary agents. but under labor union contracts they can only be assigned away from their permanent station for. I think. a period of 30 days. In any event. 60 people translates into 15 people on the ground at any given time. There needs to be an additional allocation of agents to the Douglas area. According to the Immigration and Naturalization Service. illegal immigrants comprise about 10 percent of the work force in Arizona. In addition. according to Governor Fife Symington. Arizona incurs costs of $30 million every year to incarcerate criminal aliens. The State also spends $55 million annually in Arizona taxpayer money to provide free education to persons who are in this country illegally. Clearly. Illegal immigration imposes great costs on our citizens. Mr. President.
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Immigration illegal immigrants illegal Immigration Naturalization Illegal immigration