The good news is Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff this week acknowledged we have a problem with our border.

The bad news is his solution is more judges and lawyers, not fences and enforcement agents.

There's no question Washington is becoming aware of the growing public frustration over the way our country is being invaded – not just by illegal aliens seeking work, but criminals, drug dealers and terrorists.

"The American public is rightly distressed about a situation in which they feel we do not have the proper control over our borders," Chertoff said in one of the great understatements of our time.

Imagine Gen. Custer saying: "Over that hill, I think there are friendly Indians."

Chertoff's answer? Adding more beds for detainees and making more judges and lawyers available. I'm not kidding. That's what he told reporters, including the New York Times, this week.

The misnamed "Homeland Security Department" is still treating the symptoms rather than the problem – chasing down a small percentage of illegal aliens and processing them rather than shutting off the source of the flood.

He did say that 142,500 illegal aliens from countries other than Mexico have been caught this year alone, compared with 39,555 in all of 2000. Many of these people, including some from terror-sponsoring states, are released into the United States before deportation proceedings because we don't have holding facilities for them.

Let me ask you a question: If these people are not U.S. citizens, and they are caught entering our country illegally, why do we need hearings for them?

Another "solution" offered by Chertoff: His staff is mapping every mile of the Mexican border, examining the heaviest entry corridors to figure out how to deploy 1,000 new Border Patrol agents he says Congress appears likely to provide in the coming year.

I guess we need to remind this administration that Congress previously approved 2,000 new Border Patrol agents for this year and each succeeding year for the next five – and the White House decided they were not needed. The problem is not legislation in Congress. It's a will to secure our border by the administration.

What did it take to evoke even this half-hearted response from Homeland Insecurity? It took two Democratic governors – Bill Richardson of New Mexico and Janet Napolitano of Arizona – declaring states of emergency due to increased violence along their borders with Mexico.

Perhaps the most outrageous statement from Chertoff, however, was what he had to say about citizen militias like the Minutemen, who have raised the visibility of this issue and deterred thousands of from entering our country illegally.

"The border is a very dangerous place," he said. "This is not a place for people to play as amateurs."

I would submit to you that it is Chertoff – a judge by training – who is the amateur attempting to deal with the problem of border security. The professionals on the line who risk their lives daily trying to protect our country from invasion overwhelmingly back the efforts of citizen support.

Richardson has characterized the Minutemen appropriately as "patriots." The Bush administration continues to think of them as "vigilantes."

It is the "professionals" in Washington who have allowed the border to become such a dangerous place. It's past time we "amateurs," the supposedly self-governing people of the United States of America, gave them some help and direction.

I'm so sick of this condescending attitude by effete, know-it-all politicians.

Can someone tell me what expertise Chertoff has in border security? Has he ever patrolled the border? Has he ever met with property owners who are seeing their homes and businesses overrun by invaders on a daily basis? Has he ever consoled the families of the hundreds of recent victims of border violence and illegal alien mayhem in this country? Does he sound like a battlefield general to you or more like a stuffed-shirt bureaucrat?