This week, Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign launched a new Spanish-langauge ad which says that Sen. John McCain “surrendered to anti-immigrant forces” and “betrayed” the Latino community.

The ad refers to McCain saying during a presidential debate that he would not vote for his own immigration bill.

The legislation — popular in the Latino community — would have provided a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants and created a guest worker program.

During the presidential campaign, McCain backed away from the bill saying that border security must come first, before any legalization plan.

McCain’s camp has denounced Obama’s Spanish-langauge ads, saying that McCain championed the immigration bill at great political risk.

Here is the Obama ad:

In Colorado, one in five Latino voters are undecided or do not strongly support one of the candidates. In Florida, it’s one in four and in Nevada, it is one in three.

The survey released by the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, known as NALEO, also found that the economy is the top election priority of latino voters. 

Nearly a third of respondents said they had trouble making their mortgage or rent payments at some point during the past 12 months. 

Read more here.

But they offered nary a word on immigration.

Several groups e-mailed reporters in advance with lists of experts on immigration to help analyze the candidates’ statements.

But the topic didn’t come up. At all.

In fact, immigration has been largely absent as a campaign topic mostly because both candidates support an immigration measure that would give illegal immigrants some kind of path to citizenship.

The only place immigration has appeared is in Spanish-langauge ads. Both candidates have been sparring over immigration in the spots, designed to influence Hispanic voters in swing states.

Read a story about the ads here.

The ad features Andy Vaquera, identified as a retired Texas police officer.

He says: “Families should be able to defend themselves against rapists, drug dealers and other criminals illegally crossing our borders. But Barack Obama didn’t think we should be allowed to use a firearm for self-defense. He even voted to allow the prosecution of people who used firearms to defend their families in their own homes. That’s just wrong.”

The ad is part of an aggressive NRA campaign against Obama that includes a Web site — http://www.gunbanobama.com.

The site claims that Obama would be the “most anti-gun president in American history.”

Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt recently told the LA Times that “Obama has always believed that the 2nd Amendment protects the individual right to own a firearm.”

See the NRA ad here.

Read an LA Times story about the NRA campaign here.

“Our office is charged with enforcing the immigration laws against aliens who illegally enter our country, and those who illegally harbor and employ them,” said W. Walter Wilkins, the U.S. Attorney for the District of South Carolina. “The execution of this search warrant today marks an important phase of this ongoing investigation into the hiring practices of this employer. Aggressive enforcement and investigative actions are vital to the integrity of our immigration system.”

Read more here.

Citing lawyers, detainee accounts and observations of courtroom proceedings, the Post said that federal officials regularly misplace files or fail to bring detainees to court hearings resulting in “needless additional jail time at taxpayer expense.”

According to the story, ICE officials reject claims that their operations are strained, saying the agency has made “significant strides.”

Read the story here.

The number of illegal immigrants arriving in the United States has declined from about 800,000 a year earlier this decade, to about 500,000 a year from 2005 to 2008, said the report by the Pew Hispanic Center, a non-partisan research group in Washington.

The findings reverse a decade-long trend where more illegal immigrants arrived in the United States than legal immigrants.

The total number of illegal immigrants — which also includes millions who came legally to the United States and overstayed their visas — appears to have declined since last year — from 12.4 million in 2007 to 11.9 million in 2008. However, the finding is “inconclusive” because of the margin of error in the estimates, the study said.

The study also found:

— Illegal immigrants comprise about 4 percent of the U.S. population and about 30 percent of the nation’s foreign-born population. More than 39 million people born in other countries live in the United States.

— The vast majority of illegal immigrants — four out of five — come from Latin American countries.

— The number of illegal immigrants from Mexico appears to have leveled off since last year at around 7 million.

Read the study here.

The effort targeted violent street gangs in 53 cities across 28 states, federal officials said.

“Street gangs prey on the neighborhoods in which they operate and they instill fear through intimidation and violence,” said Julie Myers, who heads ICE. “By partnering with other law enforcement agencies across the country, we are successfully targeting these gangs, arresting their leaders, disrupting their operations, and putting their members and associates behind bars.”

Of the 1,759 people arrested, nearly 1,500 were gang members, associates or those otherwise criminally charged, ICE said.

Read the ICE press release here.

Read a story about the operation here.

It is dubbed the “Protect Citizens and Residents from Unlawful Raids and Detention Act.”

Immigrant advocates are hailing the legislation.

Ben Johnson, director of the American Immigration Law Foundation, said that the group “applauds Senators Menendez and Kennedy’s efforts to reintroduce the rule of law and the basic principles of fairness and humanity to the enforcement of our country’s immigration laws…Due process and equal treatment under the law are fundamental rights that our country has stood for and are at the heart of the Menendez-Kennedy bill.”

Solis said: “We need a fighter like Barack Obama. We need to have someone in the White House that will fight for us to provide good medical coverage, will advocate protecting a woman’s right to choose, and help us push crucial women’s rights legislation through Congress.”

She also said that Obama is the son of immigrants, like many Hispanics and Latinos and “shares many values with the Latino community.”

Longoria, who previously supported Sen. Hillary Clinton, also commented on Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska.

“I’m very confused by the women who have turned their support to Palin because Hillary did not get on the ticket. Palin, for me, represents everything Hillary is not. I don’t know how a woman can support someone who does not support equal pay for women, or the right to choose,” Longoria said.

The English-language video is more than 5 minutes long. See it here:

The debate will be translated for the Spanish-speaking audience.

“TeleFutura is proud to present this very important event live to our viewers from coast to coast,” said Bert Medina, senior vice president and operating manager of the network. “Hispanics are sure to play a crucial role in this election and we are pleased to be able to provide our audience the opportunity to see the candidates together for the first time.”

TeleFutura reaches 85 percent of U.S. Hispanic households, according to a press release. It is part of Univision Communications, Inc.

The campaign is called “Adelante” which means “move forward.” It will include “saturation-level” statewide radio spots in several states including Colorado, according to a press release.

See the campaign’s new website here.

An increase in Latino voters would mostly help Democrats because Hispanics generally tend to favor Democrats by a 2 to 1 margin over Republicans.

“The campaign will both encourage people to vote and explain the process of voting, including early and absentee voting, to what is projected to be a large pool of first-time Hispanic voters,” said the release.

The groups launched a new website — www.YoVotare.org — which will serve “as a one-stop portal to connect Latinos with various unprecedented efforts to register new voters, provide voter information and education tools, and increase voter turnout in November,” the groups said, in a press release.

The groups involved in the effort include the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, the National Council of La Raza, the Univision television network, and many others.

Political analysts say that Latinos could be a crucial voting bloc in several contested states such as Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada and Florida.

He said the bill needs to include provisions to “verify the legal residency and identity of potential homebuyers to ensure that illegal aliens are not obtaining federally backed home loans - and that taxpayers are not absorbing the debts of illegal aliens, or bad loans made by banks to illegal aliens.”

“If such protections are not included in the package, I hope you will join me in opposing its passage,” he said, in a letter.

See the letter here.