Azizah al-Hibri and William H. Taft, IV [Liberty and Security Committee Members, The Constitution Project]: "Imagine your neighbor had been born and raised in Jamaica. Twenty years ago, he moved to the United States to marry an American woman and start a family. Your neighbor has a good job that enables him to support his family. He has had only one minor run-in with the law since moving to the states, a mistake for which he served no jail time but was on probation for twelve months.

Then, one day, his wife calls you in tears and tells you that her husband has been detained by federal immigration officials and sits in a jail three and a half hours from your town. She tells you that he has no idea what law he violated, if any. Without his income, the family can barely afford an attorney to advise them. If they run out of money, they will have to go without an attorney because, unlike in criminal cases, in immigration cases the government does not generally provide legal counsel to people who cannot afford it.

Days and then weeks pass by. Your neighbor finally is scheduled for a hearing but has no idea what to expect. In the meantime, his wife drives the seven-hour roundtrip to visit him every week and his children are distraught. His son, a college freshman, has taken on two jobs to help pay the bills and his 13-year-old daughter has not gone a single day without crying.

You might ask yourself if anything like this could happen here. The sad truth is that a story with those facts and many other similarly distressing tales have been reported by immigrant advocacy groups.

Last year, the Obama administration determined that the system of immigrant detention needed a major overhaul. And earlier this year, the administration's head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced plans to reform certain aspects of the system. Some of the long overdue changes promised include improving health care services for detainees and ensuring that families of detainees are able to locate their loved ones in the system.

These are important first steps, but there is so much more that needs to be done. That's why we joined recently with a bipartisan panel of experts organized by the Constitution Project to issue specific recommendations [PDF file] to reform our immigration detention system and promote access to counsel in immigration proceedings.

The number of non-citizens held each day by federal immigration authorities has increased threefold since 1996 due to stricter immigration laws. In addition to the enormous strain this growing practice puts on immigrants and their families, taxpayers are forced to bear the steep economic costs. Alleged immigration offenders like the hypothetical neighbor who pose no threat to public safety or risk of flight could be monitored electronically rather than detained. Alternative monitoring programs cost between $10 and $14 per day compared to an average of $95 a day for detention.

Perhaps the most serious shortcoming in today's immigration proceedings is the frequent absence of legal counsel for detainees. While non-citizens in removal proceedings have the right to be represented, the government is not obligated to provide counsel if the individual cannot afford it. The American Bar Association recently released a report revealing that 84 percent of immigration detainees do not have the assistance of counsel. The consequences are enormous. A 2007 study by legal scholars found that in asylum cases – in which individuals seek refuge here, on the grounds that they have been victims of abuse in their home countries – whether a noncitizen is represented is the single most important factor affecting the outcome of a case.

The Constitution Project report proposes four categories of recommendations to facilitate access to counsel, including securing government subsidized and pro bono services, as well as protecting the attorney-client relationship (in cases where detainees have managed to obtain counsel) by limiting the transfer of detainees to far away locations. The administration and Congress should work together to review these and other proposals with a goal of ensuring all immigrant detainees have adequate legal counsel. Finally, we urge lawmakers to stop relying so heavily on detention for individuals who are alleged to have violated our immigration laws but who pose no threat to the community and are not likely to flee. Implementing these common-sense recommendations will not only save taxpayers millions of dollars through more sensible enforcement, but also advance America's commitment to justice for all."

Azizah al-Hibri is a professor at the T.C. Williams School of Law at the University of Richmond.

William H. Taft, IV is former Legal Advisor for the Department of State during the George W. Bush administration and Deputy Secretary of Defense during the Reagan administration.