Changes also raised the annual caps on visas for people who hold temporary jobs, and increased the number of visas available to foreign nurses. It also increased the number of visas available to highly skilled workers from Australia.

State efforts

States — and sometimes even cities or even citizen groups — are also attempting steps and reforms of their own.

Maybe the most noticeable was Richardson's move to declare that border counties in his state face "an emergency condition with potential catastrophic consequences" because of violence, drug smuggling and other problems attributable to illegal immigration and illegal trade.

His declaration allowed emergency spending and steps to beef up local law enforcement against illegal immigration, drug smuggling and even cattle rustling.

In California, Assembly member Ray Haynes has gathered signatures to put on the ballot an initiative next year calling for the state to patrol its own borders and to enforce federal immigration laws itself. He argues the federal government isn't doing the job well enough.

In Arizona, a volunteer civilian patrol of "Minutemen" spent weeks guarding 40 miles of the border. Volunteers are again along the border this month.

In New Ipswitch, N.H., Police Chief W. Garrett Chamberlain came across a young Mexican who admitted he was in the country illegally. When federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers told him to forget about it, he cited the man for trespassing, saying he was in America and Ipswich illegally.

As states and localities — not to mention the federal government — are looking at such steps, Utah Gov. Huntsman pledged to Mexico's Fox to try to lead out with the Western Governors Association to wade through them and to find true immigration solutions.

Huntsman has said Western states need to help the country move toward "a more realistic and manageable flow of labor to specific job opportunities . . . and also expediting the whole visa system, which today is broken. It is slow. It is cumbersome. It has a cap in place."

Utahns applaud such moves by Huntsman. When the Dseret Morning News/KSL-TV poll asked how important is it that Huntsman focus on immigration issues, 85 percent said it was important, while 13 percent said it was not.

Some Utah lawmakers are also talking about revisiting benefits recently given to illegal immigrants.

Rep. Glenn Donnelson, R-North Ogden, plans to sponsor legislation to repeal in-state tuition and driving-privilege cards for illegal immigrants. He also looks at the possibility of legislation mirroring a federal bill to require employers to verify employees' documentation — a step that's optional.

Also, Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, met with members of the Utah Minuteman Project, an anti-immigration group, and agreed to look at some of their ideas for legislation.

"They've got a lot of good ideas," Buttars said. "I agree with them that if you're going to be in this country, you shouldn't be illegal . . . We should have a way to verify people working in the U.S., that they are legal."

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E-mail: lee@desnews.com