EDITORIAL HOT-BUTTON ISSUE BUSH-FOX TALKS NEED TO MAKE PROGRESS ON ILLEGAL-IMMIGRATION PROBLEM.

WHEN President George W. Bush meets with Mexico's President Vicente Fox today, the top agenda item must be the problem of illegal immigration.

According to a report by the Pew Hispanic Center, almost 11 million foreign nationals now live illegally in the United States - more than half of them Mexicans living shadow lives without papers. The governments of both the United States and Mexico bear the responsibility for this out-of- control problem. It poses a serious national security risk at a time of heightened threats of terrorism and leaves millions of people without identity and subject to exploitation.

California continues to bear the brunt of the problem, with an estimated 2.4 million illegal immigrants, nearly a quarter of the national total. That creates an enormous burden on the state to provide educational, health and social services as well as the care and feeding of prison inmates with precious little help from the federal government. But the Pew report found that California is not as big a draw as it was in the past as economic opportunity is driving immigrants to settle in Arizona, North Carolina and other states at a faster rate.

Illegal immigration is a one of those hot-button issues that few leaders have been willing to engage seriously. Even the president has dropped his push for immigration reform. But the problem isn't going away on its own. It's time that Bush and Fox start to face this difficult issue for the good of both their countries and their citizens.