DENVER -- Governor Bill Owens said he supports building a fence along the U.S. -Mexico border to keep track of who's entering the country.

The governor's remarks were made on Peter Boyles' KHOW radio show Thursday, called for putting up a "nonfatal fence that had monitors on it."

Owens likened it to the fence Israel is building on the West Bank. He said it would allow the United States to keep track of people entering to become citizens and permit others to enter to take jobs in the U.S.

"Through that fence, people who want to come and get in line to be citizens -- that's stream one," he said. "Second are guest workers who are identified, they are fingerprinted, they have permanent identification and they are here for a fixed period where there's a job.

"And if they lose a job, they lose their ability to stay here, and they have to go back."

Owens estimated that it would cost a little over $3 billion to build the fence along the 2,000-mile border.

Owens' comments come as Rep. Tom Tancredo and some state lawmakers work on a possible ballot initiative for next year seeking to ban illegal immigrants from receiving public services in Colorado. Arizona voters have already passed such a ban.