WASHINGTON - Arizona's tough new immigration law is driving undocumented families out. A few of the immigrants are returning to Mexico, but many simply are pulling up stakes and relocating to other parts of the United States.

From Arizona's perspective, that is a sign that Senate Bill 1070 is already starting to achieve its goal of "attrition through enforcement," even though the measure spearheaded by state Sen. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, doesn't go into effect until July 29. But some policymakers see Arizona's fix as merely shoving its problems onto other states. They say a national solution, comprehensive immigration reform, is needed to appropriately address the border breakdown, and they are looking to President Barack Obama for leadership.

"Russell Pearce says other states are going to be passing their own 1070s, so the pressure is on the president," said U.S. Rep. Ed Pastor, D-Ariz., senior member of the state's U.S. House delegation. "He'll have to do something or else he's going to get 50 immigration laws that are probably all different, which is something that I don't think he wants."

Obama met Tuesday with Hispanic members of Congress, including Pastor, and will give a speech Thursday at the American University School of International Service in Washington, D.C., on the need for comprehensive immigration reform.

In 2006 and 2007, with the support of President George W. Bush, Congress unsuccessfully tried to enact comprehensive reform packages that would have combined beefed-up border security and tougher immigration enforcement with programs to let undocumented immigrants already in the United States seek legal status. The measures also would have let more low-skilled workers enter legally instead of illegally.

Obama vowed to take up comprehensive reform early in his administration, but the issue is stalled again. Action now is widely viewed as unlikely until 2011 at the earliest because many members of Congress consider the issue too volatile during an election year.

Pastor said he hasn't given up hope that Congress might take up immigration reform, or at least act on parts of it, this year. He suggested that the Obama administration might be able to buy some time for tackling immigration reform by suing Arizona to stop implementation of its new law. The Justice Department has been reviewing the law, and a legal challenge could come as soon as this week.

"It's a message to other states to say that immigration is a national interest - it's our responsibility," Pastor said of a U.S. lawsuit. "We're just stepping in and saying, 'It's our (the federal government's) issue.' I think that would stop other laws from passing in other localities and, I think, also probably would give a cooling-off period to Arizona, which I think is seriously needed."

Other Arizona Democrats on Capitol Hill expressed the same sentiment as Pastor: Immigration is a federal issue, and Congress needs to reassert control before Arizona-style enforcement measures start popping up in other states.

"You can't have a piecemeal approach to immigration," said U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz. "Also, it's not the local law enforcement's responsibility to do the federal government's work. I'm angry and frustrated that so much has fallen to the local government, but a piecemeal approach where you have different laws for different communities, different laws for different populations, is unacceptable."

Staying in the U.S.

Arizona's new law makes it a state crime to be in the country illegally. It also says that an officer engaged in a lawful stop, detention or arrest shall, when practicable, ask about a person's legal status when reasonable suspicion exists that the person is in the United States illegally.

Fearing its implementation, many have already left Arizona. Others are waiting to see if the law survives legal challenges. If it does, many more may leave. But anecdotal evidence suggests that the majority of the illegal immigrants leaving Arizona are not returning to Mexico or whichever country they are from. Instead, most are moving to other states.

Luis Sanchez and Marlen Ramirez, undocumented immigrants from Mexico, packed up and moved to Pennsylvania this month, taking their three U.S. citizen children with them. Other families from the same West Valley apartment complex moved to South Carolina and Tennessee.

The Arizona Republic also has interviewed illegal immigrants who either were moving or knew families moving to New Mexico, Utah, Oregon, Washington and Illinois.

Sanchez and Ramirez are from the state of Guerrero in southern Mexico. They said that, at first, they thought about returning to Mexico, but their Arizona-born children were adamant about remaining in the United States because they are Americans, not Mexicans.

Sanchez and Ramirez said they also decided against Mexico because of the lack of good-paying jobs there. Sanchez made $9.80 an hour working for a landscaping company in the West Valley, a low wage by American standards but middle-class by Mexican standards. In Pennsylvania, Sanchez is working for his brother, who owns a small landscaping business. He is getting paid more, $10 an hour, but working fewer hours, 28 instead of 40. But he said that the money is still better than what he would earn in Mexico and that he hopes to be working more hours once they can get more lawn jobs.

Besides the lack of jobs, other undocumented immigrants leaving Arizona said they do not feel safe returning to Mexico because of the drug violence. More than 22,000 people have been killed in Mexico by organized crime since President Felipe Calder�n launched a major crackdown on cartels in 2006.

'Patchwork system'

Some observers fear an immigrant exodus from Arizona could encourage other states to follow in Arizona's footsteps, compounding the lack of consistency in U.S. immigration policies.

"It's something we've been talking about in Arizona for a long time and realize that it has to be done at the federal level," said U.S. Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, D-Ariz., who sits on the House Homeland Security Committee. "We can't continue this patchwork system, state by state, that we have. I'm opposed to 1070 because I think it's a federal issue. I don't think that 1070 is going to do anything to secure the border."

Still, reform seems a tough sell with congressional midterm elections fast approaching.

Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., the U.S. Senate's No. 2 GOP leader who helped negotiate the ill-fated 2007 immigration deal, suggested backers of comprehensive reform have been playing politics with border security, which he and U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., say must come before other reforms. He said the old bipartisan coalition on comprehensive reform is gone and doubts a similar compromise can be put together.

"The fact that the border hasn't been secured yet raises the question of whether people who want comprehensive reform are holding that hostage," Kyl said. "The sense seems to be that 'If we secured the border, then you all wouldn't have any incentive to compromise with us on comprehensive reform.' You don't have to have comprehensive reform to secure the border, but you do have to have a secure border to have comprehensive reform."

Fairness or menace?

The prospect of states passing varied immigration measures doesn't worry everyone.

Although some states might enact their own interpretations of Arizona's law, many other states will not, said Steven Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington, D.C., think tank that favors vigorous enforcement of immigration laws. Illegal immigrants likely will head toward the friendlier states, he said.

"In a way, maybe this is the compromise: The states that would like to have illegal immigrants leave their state may get their wish, and those that want them to settle in their states may also get their wish," Camarota said. "It's very hard to move policy in Washington; it's easier to move it at the state level. So, maybe that's where a lot of the action is going to be."

But Frank Sharry, executive director of America's Voice, a national organization that champions comprehensive immigration reform, predicted that Arizona and supporters of its law eventually will end up on the wrong side of U.S. civil-rights history.

"Mostly what it's going to do is drive some number of immigrants to other states - I think it will be a pretty modest number of people, but we'll find out - and give Arizona the reputation as the state that took the lead in what will become known as American-style ethnic cleansing," Sharry said. "I am horrified that states would say the way to address this problem is to put a target on the back of a whole ethnic group and try to terrorize undocumented family members out of the state."