WASHINGTON (AP) - Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, a Democrat whose state is the No. 1 entry point for illegal immigration, implored Congress Tuesday to fix the nation's broken immigration system before the year's end.

``We've heard too much talk about border security and not enough action,'' Napolitano said in a speech at the National Press Club. She urged Congress to ``end the rhetoric, stop the politics, provide sustained funding and turn away from extreme, unworkable solutions that solve nothing and only delay the benefits of real reform.''

``All of America is waiting _ and time is running out,'' said Napolitano, who is in Washington for the National Governors Association winter meeting.

The solution, she said, is a combination of border enforcement, a temporary worker program to deal with the demand for workers to fill jobs in the U.S. and strong cooperation with Mexico and other trade partners, she said.

An estimated 11 million illegal immigrants live in the country now. Last year, nearly 4,000 attempted to cross into Arizona every day, and as many as 3,000 got past border checkpoints and survived harsh desert conditions to make it to jobs in the U.S., she said.

While Congress has spent months debating a solution, efforts to solve the problem have stalled as lawmakers bitterly debate the issue.

President Bush signed a bill last year supported by conservatives who want to tighten border enforcement. The bill calls for a 700-mile fence at the U.S./Mexico line.

Lawmakers this year hope to revive a measure, which failed last year, to create a temporary worker program and a path to citizenship for some of the illegal immigrants already in the country.

Meanwhile, states have borne too much of the responsibility, Napolitano said. That includes crowded jails, hospitals and morgues and overworked judicial system workers.

She estimates the federal government owes Arizona $350 million for the cost of holding illegal immigrants in jail.

For that amount ``we could pay for all-day kindergarten for every 5-year-old in the state,'' she said.

In Phoenix, Republican legislators on Tuesday accused Napolitano of blaming the federal government for inaction while blocking meaningful state action on illegal immigration.

``When are we going to say enough is enough and we're tired of waiting on the federal government and their inaction to do the proper things for the state,'' said Rep. Warde Nichols, R-Gilbert.

Napolitano last year vetoed several Republican-sponsored bills on illegal immigration, including one to make illegal immigrants' presence in the state a trespassing crime.

She said Tuesday that she thought those bills were ``overly harsh and ineffective.'' She added that the people of Arizona seem to agree.

In November, she and newly elected Democratic Reps. Gabrielle Giffords and Harry Mitchell all defeated Republican opponents who had made tough border restrictions a central campaign issue.

Napolitano won re-election with 63 percent of the vote.

``I ... refuse to concede that illegal immigration is a political winner for those who simplistically suggest we can just 'seal' the border,'' she said.

Congress must get realistic about its approach and reject those who say the best solution is enforcing the border and ordering all illegal immigrants in the country to leave, she said.

``What a joke,'' she said of those plans.

Fences alone won't solve the immigration problem, she said.

``The continued failure to act will be worse than almost any legislation that can be passed,'' she said.