Lt. Todd Peterson of the Utah Highway Patrol in Moab said the change could help response to the increasingly busy portal. Under the current arrangement, his deputies are told by ICE to let illegal immigrants go if their only crime is being illegal.

"Our guys come into contact with illegal immigrants quite frequently in the course of their normal work week," he said. "It would be nice to have closer response."

Matheson said the letter to Chertoff is meant to raise awareness in both Congress and the Bush administration about the reality on the ground in southern Utah.

"I'm raising the issue that we have a rapidly growing (region) and we have resources that haven't changed over time," he said. "I'm hoping this will help those in Washington understand."

The letter also says a national system for determining "alien status" typically takes two hours to respond to requests from southern Utah and "it is not unusual to wait three or four hours."

Kice said while some requests do take longer, "the vast majority of queries take less than an hour."

Initial research indicates that Utah matches that average. ICE receives some 2,000 such requests each day from law enforcement agencies across the country, she said, adding, "these are individual technicians who research these inquiries."

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E-mail: dbulkeley@desnews.com