It worked — Fox supported the proposed alliance, although he has yet to sign a formal agreement with Utah. Nor has the Mexican president announced specific plans to visit the state, something Huntsman had hoped would happen by the end of the year.

In July, a whopping 85 percent of Utahns polled by Dan Jones & Associates said they believe Huntsman's focus on immigration issues is important even though he has never said exactly what he'd like to see done.

"I have ideas, but I don't have an answer," the governor said, declining to be more specific.

While he isn't traveling to Arizona with a solution in mind, Huntsman said he is serious about ultimately finding solutions. "I think it's one of the most profoundly important regional issues that we face in the United States," he said.

His effort to bring the issue to his fellow Western governors won praise from Kirk Jowers, director of the University of Utah's Hinckley Institute of Politics. "I think Huntsman is doing the right thing," Jowers said.

And the timing is right, he said, with Congress already starting to take a hard look at an issue that promises to be huge in the 2008 presidential election. "It's critical that the governors begin to address it."

Having the support of prominent Democrats can only help Huntsman, Jowers said. "It's the only way. You can get some of the minor issues accomplished by hammering them through on a partisan basis, but any legitimately difficult issue has to be bipartisan."

And immigration certainly qualifies as tough, which may well be why the governors' group has been reluctant to address it in the past. That attitude, Jowers said, is in its "last gasp. I think we're certainly at that point where you can't procrastinate any more."

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