“Nice rat.”

I’m in the entry way of the regional Immigration and Naturalization Service headquarters, small-talking with the rather portentous security personnel. It’s around lunchtime on a Tuesday, and we were not planning on driving to Omaha to do this business with the Department of Justice, but in the strangest of road trips, we found ourselves in a non descript strip mall on the outskirts of west Omaha, absconding class and work.

The rats are about two feet tall, black, with gold eyes and rivulets of red blood dripping from their fangs. The most malevolent of rodent lawn ornaments, the rats are perched in the window and the waiting area, a bloodthirsty greeting to the INS. They’ve got webbed rat toes and long, serpentine tails.

My husband and I are waiting patiently to get past security and enter the waiting area. All the paperwork for our case had been lost, and when we arrived at the Des Moines outpost of the INS earlier the same morning, they tried to give us the run-around. Thanks to a contact we obtained through the governor’s office, we learned that all our paperwork that we had filed three months before had been lost promptly after the INS had cashed our check for $350.

We had gone that day only to plead with them and possibly file our paperwork once more. The officer was initially irritated that we should be wasting the government’s time, accusing it of being inefficient or disorganized.

That the INS can lose paperwork is a troubling thing, especially in light of the events of Sept. 11. If it can’t keep track of people following its obtuse regulations and labyrinth of paperwork, how can it possibly sleuth out those abusing their visa privileges?

Fortunately, we have already played the little games of civil servants. My husband originates from a place that routinely makes the top 10 list of the most corrupt countries in the world.

Unfortunately, you can’t slip a U.S. government official a few bucks.

So we began name-dropping. A litany of people in Governor Vilsack’s office are devoted to immigration. They are delighted to work with an immigrant who is already fluent in English and three other languages, a person with an engineering degree and an agricultural background.

My husband could be poster boy for the new wave of Iowa immigrants Vilsack envisions – skilled and educated individuals who can resuscitate an aging state. Our allies in the governor’s office were the only ones who could correspond with the INS, an agency with employees that do not answer their telephones, allow voice mail recordings, respond to e-mail, nor reply to the post. Unless you are communicating from a higher government office, of course.

My husband opens his folder to get out copies of our paperwork. On the other side of the folder is a letter from Sen. Harkin. He is concerned about our case. The civil servant takes note.

When our Des Moines officer began to piece together that we were not going to be lulled with their previous excuses, he got on the phone. After a few minutes of conferring with everyone below John Ashcroft, he had an answer for us.

“If you drive to Omaha right now, you can get work authorization today. Otherwise it will be a month or so.”

As we have learned that any time predictions by the INS must be multiplied by a factor of 2.5, we get on the road to Omaha, and I drive in the left lane the whole way.

We’ve heard stories about Omaha. Des Moines told us, after the four hours we spend waiting there to do 10 minutes of business, that when we went to Omaha, we would “really wait.” Immigrant friends tell us of lining up sub-zero February mornings at 5, of carloads of Mexicans camping out, taking turns in line.

We arrive in Omaha around lunchtime. Rather than in a federal building or even its own complex, the INS regional headquarters is in a strip mall, near warehouses and light industry. They are tiny offices and waiting rooms jagged with partitions and metal detectors. It should be a Kinko’s or a Dollar General, not a U.S. government office.

If you read the INS Web site and the job opportunities the agency has, you read that as an INS officer you will have the privilege to welcome immigrants to this country and help them get adjusted to life in the United States.

“Have a seat by the rat,” says the abundantly endowed security officer, gesturing to the waiting area.

We wait for our names to be called, observing the the security guards. One radios the guard in the other offices, “India One, this is India Two. It has arrived, do you copy, it has arrived.”

Two seconds later, a pizza delivery guy walks in. The guards wave him past a Hispanic family trying to explain its situation. The pizza guy sets off every metal detector in the place and the guards don’t look up. If you want to smuggle an Uzi into a government building, show up with a pizza.

We wait for about an hour, but thanks to the calls from Des Moines earlier, we are placed on the INS fast track. In roughly an hour, my husband is finally authorized to work, after three months of waiting.

We are among the fortunate; we have help from other government offices. I’m a U.S. citizen with a job, and we both speak English. I can’t imagine how scary it must be for those who arrive without an American contact, fluency in English, or a legal source of income. I can understand how they cannot wait for legal authorization to begin earning enough to support their families.

We leave the office, our new economic freedom in hand. Walking past the bloodthirsty rats, we grin at one another. Score: Machachas 1, Mutant Rats 0.

Rachel Faber Machacha is a graduate in international development studies from Emmetsburg.