Reporter's Note: Once again the unfinished business of immigration reform is causing troubles, and so once again it is the subject of my daily letter to the president.

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Tom Foreman | BIO
AC360° Correspondent

Dear Mr. President,

I noticed that you lit into the new immigration measure in Arizona, suggesting that its “get tough” approach on undocumented workers is basically unfair. That is, of course, one of those hugely explosive issues that many communities are trying to hash out right now, and I certainly won’t take it on here. But you said one thing in your comments that bears repeating: The inaction by the federal government has invited action by the states.

And to that end, I think your venom might be far more strongly directed at failures of the federal policy than in criticizing the efforts of any state, even if you vehemently oppose that state’s stance.

Hear me out. Do you think that Arizona, New Mexico, Texas or anywhere else would even be contemplating their own immigration laws if the federal government had aggressively and successfully addressed this issue, as it certainly should have, long ago? Such states are on the front line, for good and for ill. Every benefit of new immigrants from the south, they enjoy first; and every problem, too. Without question, citizens there have spent years asking for the federal government to effectively engage this issue to no avail. And again, I’m not arguing that the federal government policy has to be pro or anti immigration…or even illegal immigration…rights. But certainly it is not too much of these border states to ask Washington to have and enforce some kind of policy.

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