Mr. Speaker. Nebraska and Iowa are a major destination today for illegal aliens and alien smugglers due to extremely low unemployment rates. the number of meat packing plants and other laborintensive industries. and the two major interstate highways which cross our two States. 180 and I29. The Immigration and Naturalization Service. the INS district office in Omaha which covers all of Nebraska and all of Iowa. has responded to 25 alien smuggling cases. and I say responded because there are many that they have not been able to respond to. and they have arrested 754 illegal aliens since October 1. 1996. As I said. they could not respond to some approximately 55 possible instances of alien smuggling involving 382 suspected illegal aliens in Nebraska and Iowa because the resources needed to respond were unavailable. The INS Omaha district office has a staff of 19 special agents who handle all the enforcement responsibilities in the States of Iowa and Nebraska. The INS office in Denver has. on the other hand. 44 special agents. and the INS office in Kansas City has 32 special agents. While several of the larger districts in the INS central region have antismuggling units in place. the district covering Nebraska and Iowa does not. September 3 to September 5 the INS district office responded to 2 cases of suspected alien smuggling. apprehending 2 groups. one containing 33 illegal aliens and one containing 18 illegal aliens. However. it did not respond to a third incident concerning 14 suspected illegal aliens. The reason given by the INS district office was to respond to groups of illegal aliens smaller than 15 is discretionary. given its limited capability. and on that day the Omaha office did not have the necessary staff available due to the fact that some of those personnel from the Omaha office were on assignment in Guatemala. El Salvador. and south Texas. This is a prime example.
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Naturalization illegal aliens Immigration