"Iowa's economic future depends on our ability to attract a significant number of new residents," Grassley said. "The bureaucratic backlog in processing legal immigration cases means that Iowa employers are losing potential employees to larger metropolitan areas of the country where the INS provides better services. Iowa taxpayers deserve a more equitable share of the federal dollars controlled by the INS."
Grassley made his case in a letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft. The Immigration and Naturalization Service is a bureau within the Justice Department.
"We need more INS service workers in Iowa to help naturalize citizens, adjust immigration status applications and authorize employment," Grassley said. There are a growing number of individuals being served by the INS office in Des Moines, but the number of INS personnel in Iowa has actually decreased.
In his letter to Ashcroft, Grassley included an analysis by the American Immigration Lawyers Association which shows the processing times at the INS office in Omaha are several times longer than they are in other metropolitan areas for paperwork dealing with permanent residence, naturalization and work authorization.
In addition to requesting more personnel, Grassley asked the attorney general to allow the INS personnel working in Des Moines to authorize work and family-based visas to try and ease the processing backlog. Currently, those procedures are controlled by the INS office located in Omaha.
In 1996, Grassley was instrumental in getting the INS to locate offices in Iowa for both service personnel and law enforcement officers. Before that, Iowa had to rely on the Omaha office. Since then, Grassley has worked to secure additional service personnel for the office in Des Moines, despite resistance from the INS to locate more caseworkers in Iowa. The INS has claimed that among the 35 INS regions across the country, the casework backlog in the region which includes Iowa is less severe than 25 other regions.
Grassley is a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is responsible for immigration policy.