[Texasforever]

Is it the federal government telling the states not to, or the states refusing to?

The sates refusing to. Look up a thread entitled the "illegal immigration crime wave". It talks about LA and California. The thread was posted by the dump Bush crowd but it is a case study in the problem I have talked about. This is a problem that can never be solved without police state measures or the full cooperation of states whose economic health is largely built on cheap labor forgo that benefit and stop protecting those that are here illegally.

[Marak]

Well the federal government has never been shy about telling the states what to do. They managed to get the 55 mph speed limit into effect. If they truly want to solve this problem, they can. That is the true problem, they don't really care to address it. It is easier to do some hocus pocus and say the problem no longer exists. Ten years down the road we can address it again.