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President Obama plans to unveil a “blueprint” on Tuesday regarding what he wants Congress to include in a comprehensive immigration reform bill, according to senior administration officials.

Obama is scheduled to visit El Paso, Texas, with Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano as part of the White House’s increased efforts to return immigration reform to the national spotlight.

A senior administration official told reporters in a conference call Monday evening that Obama’s renewed push for an immigration bill was not merely a political move attempting to paint Congress as the inhibitor and the White House as the doer in the eyes of Latino voters ahead of the 2012 elections.

“While it may be true that there are significant obstacles in Congress, we believe the American people expect the policymakers to do their job,” said an official. “So we do not accept the argument that because there are some in Congress who are unwilling to act that we ought to just wash our hands of trying to get this done.”

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, a moderate Republican, urged his party Sunday to support immigration generally because illegal immigrants do essential work in the U.S. In an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press,” he said a path to legal status should be offered to illegal immigrants because they “are doing things we need done in this country.”

According to Powell, illegal immigrants are all over his house whenever he calls for repairs. However, Powell did not say whether he’s hired illegal immigrants directly or they showed up with contractors. In lamenting the party’s rightward drift Sunday, he said Republicans must not become anti-immigration and spoke in support of legislation that would give certain children of illegal immigrants a way to become citizens if they pursue a college education or military service – The Dream Act.

Powell also said “fringe” elements on the right are taking a low road when they label Obama a foreign-born Muslim and peddle other false theories about non-American influences on the president’s character. Obama was born in the U.S. and is Christian. “Let’s attack him on policy, not nonsense,” he said.

As the Obama administration seeks to create a more humane system of detention for illegal immigrants, most continue to be held in rural jails without ready access to legal representation.

According to a survey of immigration detention facilities nationwide, more than half did not offer detainees information about their rights. Furthermore, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detains about 400,000 immigrants annually at a cost of $1.7 billion this fiscal year.

Executive director of the National Immigrant Justice Center claimed that while access to legal counsel is a foundation of the U.S. Justice System, their survey found that the government continues to detain thousands of men and women in remote facilities where access to counsel is limited or nonexistent.

Federal officials said they were making progress in helping provide legal help for detained immigrants. Additionally, ICE spokesman stated that they are working with their stakeholders, including the U.S. Department of Justice and nongovernmental organizations, to expand and support legal pro bono representation for those in custody.

The issue of lawyers for immigrant detainees is not new. Last year, the Constitution Project, a bipartisan legal group that promotes the right to legal counsel, argued in a report that the government should consider public funding for legal aid to detained immigrants.

Illegal immigrants ordered held are placed in a patchwork of about 350 mostly private facilities, many of them in less populated parts of the country. Detainees often find themselves transferred to facilities far from their homes, families, friends, and access to legal representation. Some California detainees are transferred to Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, which makes it very difficult for their families to coordinate and organize a meaningful defense to deportation.

A 2005 Migration Policy Institute study found that 41% of detainees applying to become lawful permanent residents who had legal counsel won their cases, compared with 21% of those without representation. In asylum cases, 18% of detainees with lawyers were granted asylum, compared with 3% for those without.

Granting immigrants better access to counsel could even save taxpayer money because detainees often would be released sooner, saving the $122-a-day cost of detention.

If you or a loved one is currently in immigration court or being held in detention, contact The Nunez Firm to schedule a free consultation.

The Department of Homeland Security is reviewing thousands of pending immigration cases and moving to dismiss those filed against suspected illegal immigrants who have no serious criminal records.

According to Richard Rocha, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman, the review is part of the agency’s broader, nationwide strategy to prioritize the deportations of illegal immigrants who pose a threat to national security and public safety. Rocha declined to provide further details.

Critics assailed the plan as another sign that the Obama administration is trying to create a kind of backdoor “amnesty” program. An immigration attorney who was briefed on the effort by Homeland Security’s deputy chief counsel in Houston, said DHS confirmed that it’s reviewing cases nationwide, though not yet to the pace of the local office. However, they are following general guidelines that allow for the dismissal of cases for defendants who have been in the country for two or more years and have no felony convictions. In some instances, defendants can have one misdemeanor conviction, but it cannot involve a DWI, family violence or sexual crime.

Opponents of illegal immigration were critical of the dismissals. However, immigrants who have had their cases terminated are frequently left in limbo, and are not granted any form of legal status. These illegal immigrants still have no work permits and Social Security Numbers. ICE is not going to proceed with their removal from the United States. However, they are still here illegally.

In a June 30 memo, ICE Assistant Secretary John Morton outlined the agency’s priorities, saying it had the capacity to remove about 400,000 illegal immigrants annually. The memo outlines priorities for the detention and removal system, putting criminals and threats to national security at the top of the list. Recently, ICE officials provided a copy of a new policy memo from Morton dated Aug. 20 that instructs government attorneys to review the court cases of people with pending applications to adjust status based on their relation to a U.S. citizen. Morton estimates in the memo that the effort could affect up to 17,000 cases.

Records show that about 47,000 people have been removed or deported from the U.S. after the Homeland Security Department sifted through 3 million sets of fingerprints taken from bookings at local jails.

Additionally, according to government data obtained by immigration advocacy groups that have filed a lawsuit, about one quarter of those deported from the U.S. did not have criminal records. At issue is a fingerprint-sharing program known as Secure Communities that the government claims to be focused on getting rid of the “worst of the worst” criminal immigrants from the U.S.

However, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) who divides crimes into three categories, with Level 1 being the most serious, has mostly deported committed Level 2 or 3 crimes and non-criminals.

Peter Markowitz, director of the Immigration Justice Clinic at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York, said that ICE has pulled a bait and switch, with local law enforcement spending more time and resources facilitating the deportations of bus boys and gardeners than murderers and rapist.

Furthermore, Markowitz’s clinic, the National Day Laborer Organizers Network and the Center for Constitutional Rights had requested and sued for the statistics. Immigration and Customs Enforcement released some of the documents late Monday.

Richard Rocha, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman, said non-criminals still may be people who have failed to show up for deportation hearings, who recently crossed the border illegally or who re-entered the country after deportation. He also said it’s important to remember that more people commit crimes that are considered Level 2 and 3, and that Secure Communities is beneficial for ICE, state and local law enforcement; helping to identify and remove convicted criminal aliens not only from the communities, but also from the country.

The Obama administration wants Secure Communities operating nationwide by 2013.

As of Aug. 3rd, 494 counties and local and state agencies in 27 states were sharing fingerprints from jail bookings through the program.

From October 2008 through June of this year, 46,929 people identified through Secure Communities were removed from the U.S., the documents show. Of those, 12,293 were considered non-criminals.

In case after case where immigrant students were identified by federal agents as being in the country illegally, the students were released from detention and their deportations were suspended or canceled. Officials have even declined to deport students who openly declared their illegal status in public protests.

The students who have been allowed to remain are among more than 700,000 illegal immigrants who would be eligible for legal status under a bill before Congress specifically for high school graduates who came to the United States before they were 16. Department of Homeland Security officials said they had made no formal change of policy to permit those students to stay. But they said they had other, more pressing deportation priorities.

The issue of illegal immigrant students has become pressing because young immigrants have staged increasingly frequent and defiant protests to demand passage this year of the piece of the overhaul that would benefit them.

Lawmakers who support that legislation have asked the administration to halt student deportations until Congress takes it up. But most Republicans are opposed to any action that would weaken enforcement against illegal immigration.

An internal Homeland Security memorandum, released last month by Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, set off a furor among his fellow Republicans because it showed immigration officials weighing steps they could take without Congressional approval to give legal status to some illegal immigrants, including suspending deportations of students.

The moratorium had been requested by Richard J. Durbin of Illinois and Senator Richard G. Lugar, Republican of Indiana, the leading sponsors of the student legislation, called the Dream Act.

But a White House official said that the administration had decided against the moratorium, preferring to push for the student bill, which could grant legal status to more than 700,000 young immigrants here illegally.

“Legislation does far more for Dream Act students than deferring deportations would, in that it puts them on a path to citizenship,” said the official, who requested anonymity to discuss an internal policy debate.

According to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky), Congress “ought to take a look at” changing the 14th Amendment, which give the children of illegal immigrants a right to U.S. citizenship. McConnell’s statement signals growing support within the GOP for the controversial idea, which has also recently been touted by Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

After McConnell stated in an interview that the 14th Amendment provision should be reconsidered in light of the country’s immigration problem. Kyl, then in a TV interview said that there is a constitutional provision in the 14th amendment that has been interpreted to provide that , if you are born in the United States, you are a citizen no matter what. However, according to Kyl, the question is, if both parents are here illegally, should there be a reward for their illegal behavior?

Kyl added that he suggested to Graham that “we should hold some hearings and hear first from the constitutional experts to at least tell us what the state of the law on that proposition is.”

It is unclear when such hearings would occur. Democrats, who control the Senate, set the chamber’s hearing schedule.

Proponents of comprehensive immigration reform strongly oppose the Republican-led effort, which could play a major role in firing up both the left and right this election year.

The escalating debate on the 14th Amendment comes in the wake of the legal battle between Arizona and the federal government over the state’s immigration law. The idea of changing the nation’s policy on this issue has picked up steam among conservatives in recent weeks.

Graham, who had considered working with Democrats on immigration reform earlier this year, now claims that birthright citizenship is a mistake. Adding that we should change our Constitution and say if one comes illegally and has a child, that child is automatically not a citizen.

McConnell said the Obama administration needs to improve its ability to secure the country’s borders before tackling a change to the amendment. However, while Obama’s push for immigration reform is considered dead in the 111th Congress, some Democrats on Capitol Hill are pushing for a scaled-back bill to move this fall.

One such option is Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin’s (D-Ill.) Dream Act, which would give undocumented students the right to apply for permanent residence in the U.S. Durbin’s bill has attracted praise from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), but Durbin has publicly noted that some Democrats are not on board.

The Justice Department has decided to file suit against Arizona on the grounds that the state’s new immigration law illegally intrudes on federal prerogatives.

The lawsuit, which three sources said could be filed as early as Tuesday, will invoke for its main argument the legal doctrine of “preemption,” which is based on the Constitution’s supremacy clause and says that federal law trumps state statutes. Justice Department officials believe that enforcing immigration laws is a federal responsibility, the sources said.

A federal lawsuit will dramatically escalate the legal and political battle over the Arizona law, which gives police the power to question anyone if they have a “reasonable suspicion” that the person is an illegal immigrant. The measure has drawn words of condemnation from President Obama and Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and opposition from civil rights groups. It also has prompted at least five other lawsuits. Arizona officials have urged the Obama administration not to sue.

The preemption doctrine has been established in Supreme Court decisions, and some legal experts have said such a federal argument likely would persuade a judge to declare the law unconstitutional.

But lawyers who helped draft the Arizona legislation have expressed doubt that a preemption argument would prevail. The law, signed by Gov. Jan Brewer (R) in April, is scheduled to take effect on July 29, 2010.

When President Obama announced last month that he would ask Congress for $500 million and deploy the National Guard to strengthen security on the border with Mexico, several advocacy groups in the region that had campaigned for a different approach were forced to confront a disappointing reality: Washington still wasn’t listening to them.

So, members of groups from Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California were among the roughly 45 delegates who came together in San Diego. At the top of the agenda was how to counter Obama’s message that further security measures are needed. The delegates acknowledged that their goal, comprehensive immigration reform, is unlikely to be taken up by Congress this year.

According to Louie Gilot of the Border Network for Human Rights based in El Paso, we were promised change by the administration, however we’re not only getting the same enforcement-only policy, we’re getting even more of it.

Homeland Security Department officials disputed that, citing a speech by Secretary Janet Napolitano this week in which she argued that the administration has backed calls for comprehensive immigration reform and has adopted a “smarter” approach than its predecessor.

The border groups had hoped to convince administration officials that, with arrests of illegal immigrants on the border at the lowest levels since the early 1970s, the current enforcement strategy is working. They noted that the number of border agents has already risen from about 11,000 in 2004 to 20,000 today.

According to Andrea Guerrero, policy director for the American Civil Liberties Union of San Diego, some of the advocates had been meeting over the past year and a half with Customs and Border Protection officials to encourage more humane policies, including cell phone towers to help border crossers who find themselves endangered in the desert. The groups had also encouraged a better relationship between the agency and local communities.

The groups pledged to combine their efforts. According to Fernando Garcia, director of the Border Network for Human Rights, enforcement is needed and they recognize that. But it has to be infused with our American values, such as accountability, fiscal responsibility, respect to human rights and community security.

President Obama today called for a “practical, common sense” immigration system that will help the U.S. economy and maintain America’s immigrant tradition — and he put the pressure on Republicans to get it through Congress.

“Reform that brings accountability to our immigration system cannot pass without Republican votes,” Obama said in his first major immigration speech as president . “That is the political and mathematical reality.”

Obama said his administration has already taken record-setting actions to strengthen the border, and he urged Congress to approve “a pathway to legal status” for the 11 million or so illegal immigrants who are already in the United States.

Immigration has become “a source of fresh contention” in recent days because of the new Arizona law that gives police greater authority to question people’s citizenship, Obama said. His administration is expected to file a lawsuit against Arizona, but the president did not discuss potential legal action.

Speaking to lawmakers, academics, and community leaders gathered at American University, Obama touted his plan by stressing the immeasurable contributions that immigrants have made to the United States, and the frequent discrimination they faced throughout history. “Immigrants have always helped to build and defend this country,” Obama said.

Obama said political posturing on an emotional issue has delayed congressional action in years and month past. “Into this breach,” he said, “states like Arizona have decided to take matters into their own hands.”

“These laws also have the potential of violating the rights of innocent American citizens and legal residents,” Obama said, “making them subject to possible stops or questioning because of what they look like or how they sound.”

At points in his speech, Obama criticized both sides of the immigration debate.

Some rights groups all but encourage illegal immigration, Obama said, though at least 11 million people are in fact breaking the law by not going through the citizenship process, and they should be held accountable.

As for critics of “amnesty,” Obama said it’s simply impossible to deport 11 million people. Doing so would disrupt communities and break up families, he added, as many undocumented immigrants have children who are U.S. citizens because they were born here.

The president said he has already taken major steps to better protect the border, proclaiming — twice — that “we have more boots on the ground near the southwest border than at any time in our history.”

As for his pathway to citizenship plan, President Obama said it will help create “a younger workforce and a faster growing economy than many of our competitors,” Obama said. “And in an increasingly interconnected world, the diversity of our country is a powerful advantage in global competition.”