We need to get serious. I just don't think we're serious enough.

Chertoff says illegal immigration has beaten us. Guest worker program is our only hope.

How pathetic. How utterly pathetic.

We haven't even TRIED to stop it yet.

Superpower my ass.

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CNN Lou Dobbs - video here:Chertoff: "Illegal Immigration so far has Defeated all the Enforcement Measures"

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Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff gave a bleak assessment of our ability to secure our southern border. Secretary Chertoff said illegal immigration so far has defeated all the enforcement measures this government has been able to muster. "Only a temporary worker program will give us the ability to deal with that tremendous economic draw which has time and again over the years defeated all of the enforcement measures that the government has placed on the border to try to get security for this country," he said. But Dan Stein of the Federation for American Immigration Reform argues that a guest worker program could make the problem of illegal immigration worse. "If we're not prepared to put in place the resources needed to make sure aliens leave when they're supposed to, to ensure employers can only hire lawfully authorized workers, to make the law have credibility again, nothing about a guest worker amnesty plan is going to make that a reality. Our borders will be out of control and our national security and our communities will be in jeopardy." A recent DHS report to Congress which said the department has effective control only 15 percent of the southern border.

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CNN Lou Dobbs - video here: Is Michael Chertoff the Right Man to Run DHS?

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There's a new delay in implementing a program to track foreign visitors as they leave the United States.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff says the program, U.S. Visit, will go ahead for air travelers but will be delayed for land crossings and ports.

This is how Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff explains his priorities for the U.S. Visit program: "Ask yourself what's more important, keeping a terrorist out in the first place, or having a terrorist come in and then finding out that he hasn't left after 90 days? Well, considering the fact that the 9/11 hijackers left by committing suicide, it seemed pretty obvious to us the first priority is to keep them out in the first place."

Critics point out there's a fundamental problem with that set of priorities. Michael Cutler, a former immigration agent, said: "If we don't know who's leaving and we don't have any ability to follow up on people who failed to depart the United States, that's just half the equation. That's like saying the job of the airline pilot is to get the airplane off the ground."

It's estimated that as much as 40 percent of the illegal aliens in country are here as the result of visa overstays, including most of the 9/11 hijackers. They entered legally. They stayed illegally. In addition, Chertoff announced that because of the cost involved and the huge inconvenience that might be created, implementation to the U.S. Visit at the 50th busiest land border crossings is proving too difficult.

Dan Stein of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, said: "If Michael Chertoff can't figure out how to implement this program without causing long lines and delays, then we got the wrong guy running DHS."