Efforts on the part of state lawmakers to address the issue of illegal immigration stem, unquestionably, from congressional inaction on the issue.

It's understandable that states might want to fill that leadership void. At the same time, immigration cannot be solved with a patchwork-quilt approach. It is a federal issue that requires federal solutions. Establishing a separate tier of restrictions in Utah will simply push people and their associated costs and benefits elsewhere.

State lawmakers need to carefully consider the ramifications of a proposed law that would keep undocumented workers from obtaining jobs. Utah's unemployment rate is exceedingly low. Seemingly every fast-food joint and retail establishment is advertising for help. Once demolition work is completed, downtown Salt Lake City will soon become a massive construction site as work begins on the City Creek Center, a 22-acre mixed use development.

We need only look to our neighbors to the east to appreciate how restrictive state policies on illegal immigration don't work. Colorado has such a labor shortage in its agricultural sector that it is conducting a pilot program using prison inmates as farm laborers. Many of these farms had offered nearly $10 an hour to tend and pick crops. When they found no takers, desperate farmers asked their state legislators for help.

Thus far, there have been no major problems with the inmate workers. But such approaches are stopgap fixes at best. A state's agriculture segment cannot rely on inmate labor long-term. At some point, the federal government has to craft a workable immigration policy that acknowledges the nation's labor needs, helps to bring illegal immigrants out of the shadows and deals with the social implications of millions of people in our midst who need education, job training, affordable housing and health care.

Instead of passing state-level immigration legislation, state legislators' collective energies would be better spent pressuring Congress to set aside the politicking and making immigration reform one of its highest priorities.