"We have to be more vigilant about who comes in and who leaves. And I think the best way we can handle this it to have one person in the government who's responsible."

Clinton's call for a border security czar follows by days her letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff, where she explained her objections to a proposal that would require a passport to cross into the U.S. from Canada.

"National security and, in particular, security at our borders, must continue to be paramount and I have made security at New York's northern border a top priority since joining the Senate," she insisted. "However, it is crucial that any new requirement be sensitive to the potentially serious impact of this proposal on tourism and the regional economy."

Clinton's call for a border security czar is seen as an extension of her get-tough policy on illegal immigration. Her critics charge that Sen. Clinton and her political strategists hope this new strategy will appeal to red-state voters in anticipation of a 2008 presidential run.

"I don't think that we have protected our borders or our ports or provided our first responders with the resources they need, so we can do more and we can do better," Clinton told the Fox News Channel last November, in an indirect swipe at President Bush's open borders policy.

"There's technology now available," she noted. "There are some advanced radar systems. There are biometric and other kinds of identification systems that we've been very slow to deploy and unwilling to spend money on."

In a February 2003 radio interview the top Democrat offered her harshest comments to date on illegal immigration.

"I am, you know, adamantly against illegal immigrants," she told WABC host John Gambling.

Borrowing a page from conservative commentator Pat Buchanan, Clinton railed: "People have to stop employing illegal immigrants. I mean, come up to Westchester, go to Suffolk and Nassau counties, stand on the street corners in Brooklyn or the Bronx; you're going to see loads of people waiting to get picked up to go do yard work and construction work and domestic work."

Editor's note: