Mayor Bloomberg hit the cable-television circuit yesterday to promote his plan for a national DNA or fingerprint database that would track the citizenship status of all workers.

The mayor’s immigration plan, which he outlined in an opinion piece in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, offers plenty for both liberals and conservatives. He said the American economy would be in shambles if the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants were sent back to their home countries. He also called for fencing and high-tech surveillance in remote border areas and suggested immigrants pay back taxes and whatever fines they owe in exchange for legalization.

“We’re not having babies fast enough,” Mr. Bloomberg said during an interview on Fox News Channel. “When you want to retire and you want Social Security to pay the benefits that you believe the government promised, somebody’s going to have to be paying into Social Security.”

Throughout the day, Mr. Bloomberg repeatedly attacked Congress – where his fellow Republicans are leading the charge on a proposal that would require undocumented immigrants who’ve been in the country for less than two years to report to the border. He called the concept “about as ludicrous a thing that I’ve ever heard come out of any Legislature.”

But with the Senate expected to vote later this week on a final immigration bill, Mr. Bloomberg’s plan is coming late and getting Washington to consider his ideas will be a challenge. The national tracking system would also have civil rights and privacy hurdles.

“We already have a unique identification card for everybody that works in this country,” Mr. Bloomberg said when talking about his proposed card. “It’s called your Social Security card, so this is not a civil liberties issue.”

He added: “In the day and age when everybody’s got a PC on their desk with Photoshop that can replicate anything, it’s become a joke. You can go buy a green card or a Social Security card for 50 bucks. I’m told it’s so competitive sometimes you can get two for the price of one.”

The wide-ranging nature of his ideas helped put some weight behind his declaration that “I’m not a partisan guy.”

“It’s Mike Bloomberg, the mayor of a city of immigrants, weighing in on a national issue,” a professor of public affairs at Baruch College, Douglas Muzzio, said. “The thing that intrigues me is this increased national exposure on the part of the mayor. He’s really crafting a national agenda for whatever reason. That exposure certainly gives credence to this idea of Mike Bloomberg 2008.”

A senior staff attorney at the New York Immigration Coalition, Avideh Moussavian, praised Mr. Bloomberg for his proposal to legalize undocumented immigrants already here, but had reservations about his proposed tracking system.

“It has the possibility for dangerous misuse of private information,” Ms. Moussavian said. “Without the proper checks and balances we have concerns about that.”

Mr. Bloomberg has courted immigrant groups during his tenure in City Hall, and last year Hispanic supporters played a substantial role in his re-election campaign. His public stance on immigration comes just as the Anti-Defamation League reports an increase in neo-Nazi threats against Hispanics.