High levels of immigration can also make government data unreliable, says Kevin Deardorff, of the American census office.Modern-minded American statisticians also face thorny legal questions: the constitution calls for an "actual enumeration" of the population.
The new governor also faces thorny proposals to build the Broadwater liquefied natural gas terminal in Long Island Sound, modernize generating plants for the Long Island Power Authority and install a third track on the Long Island Rail Road's main line.
As lawmakers in Washington consider an overhaul of the immigration system, Congress faces thorny questions not just about what status to grant immigrants already in the country, but also about how best to increase enforcement efforts and what rights to ensure illegal immigrants during their detention.
But now, economists and policy experts are facing the thorny and politically freighted question of what the United States' inequality might mean over the next several years.
Facing a thorny election in 2001, John Howard, Mr Abbott's predecessor as Liberal prime minister, opened the offshore detention camps in Nauru and on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea.
BBC mockumentary W1A is to return for a second series next year with Hugh Bonneville's head of values, Ian Fletcher, facing the thorny issue of the corporation's charter renewal.
Indeed, when facing a thorny political issue or weighty public policy debate, Mr. Pataki's way, not unfamiliar to other elected leaders, has often been to use reticence, adopt some careful nuance or remain relatively quiet.
Thus, we are facing a thorny problem threatening many lives, and it seems that the difficulties of curing cancer are out of our grasp.
But he faces a thorny quandary.
And it faces potentially thorny regulatory obstacles.
