Gregoire: Obama message on immigration is unclear

The issue of illegal immigration created quite a bit of heat among the nation’s governors this weekend, according to the New York Times..

NYT’s Abby Goodnough writes that a number of Democrat governors are worried about potential political fallout from the Obama Administration lawsuit to block Arizona’s controversial immigration law.

Also in the story, Gov. Chris Gregoire says that the president isn’t making his approach on dealing with illegal immigration very clear to the public.

From the story:

Immigration was not the only topic at the Saturday meeting between Democratic governors and two White House officials — Patrick Gaspard, Mr. Obama’s political director, and Cecilia Munoz, director of intergovernmental affairs. But several governors, including Christine Gregoire of Washington, said it was a particularly heated issue.

Ms. Gregoire, who does not face an election this year, said the White House was doing a poor job of showing the American public that it was working on the problem of illegal immigration.

“They described for me a list of things that they are doing to try and help on that border,” Ms. Gregoire said of the White House officials at the closed-door meeting. “And I said, ‘The public doesn’t know that.’ ”

She added, “We’ve got a message void, and the only thing we’re hearing is that they’re filing a lawsuit.”