But she cautioned that Arizona shouldn't let the federal government off the hook for its perceived failure to secure the border with Mexico.

The governor said one way the state can try to lessen illegal immigration problems is to have local police departments augment efforts of U.S. Border Patrol agents.

"The state can, I think, appropriately address some of the law enforcement resource issues, not by being immigration agents, but by perhaps providing some of the support services," Napolitano said.

She declined to specify the type of help she thinks police agencies could offer.

The subject will be examined at a July 12 meeting of law enforcement agencies from across Arizona.

Since voters approved a law last year that denies some welfare benefits to illegal immigrants, a growing number of frustrated politicians in Arizona have pushed for the state to confront illegal immigration, even though it has long been considered the domain of the federal government.

Angela Kelley, deputy director of the pro-immigrant National Immigration Forum, said that, as with many officials in Arizona, she believes the federal government doesn't have a handle on the country's broken immigration system.

"The question is whether the sort of piecemeal approach of trying to control undocumented immigrants through state authority is going to work," said Kelley.

She said an overhaul of the country's immigration policies is best left to the federal government. "Ultimately, you would end up with 50 different immigration policies if all states took it up," she said.

Arizona has been dogged by a heavy flow of illegal immigrants since the government tightened enforcement in El Paso, Texas, and San Diego during the mid-1990s.

While immigrants provide the economy with cheap labor, Arizona and other states shoulder huge health-care and education costs for illegal workers and their families.

Once considered a black hole that few elected officials wished to enter, illegal immigration has taken a more prominent role in Arizona politics, especially at the Legislature this year.

Some of the Democratic governor's Republican critics have said she has sent mixed messages on immigration and has given attention to the problem because it will play a part in next year's gubernatorial race.

Napolitano said critics have offered little but political rhetoric and that many of critics' proposals would have done nothing to prevent illegal immigration.

She signed a law that creates the state crime of immigrant smuggling.