Chertoff told a border-security conference in El Paso (NYSE:EP), Texas, that his department was now faced with having to enforce immigration laws that not only pull resources away from dealing with security threats but also have a negative impact on agriculture and other economic sectors that have become dependent on illegal migrant labor.

“I’m still hopeful that it may be revisited,” he said of the immigration bill, which died in the Senate this year.

“In the long run, we all know that this problem has to be tackled comprehensively,” he said, by creating a channel for those who want to come to the country for work to do so legally.

Meanwhile, Homeland Security found itself facing “a need to pursue people coming here (illegally) to work, taking time away from (pursuing people) who are coming here to do us harm” like drug smugglers and terrorists.

Chertoff said he does not necessarily expect another vast comprehensive immigration package like the stalled reform bill. “It may take a couple of bites to digest,” he said.

But in the meantime his department and other federal agencies “had no choice” but to enforce existing laws, with consequences that will be “quite serious for some sectors” of the U.S. economy, like farming.

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Shaun Waterman, UPI Homeland and National Security Editor