Tucked into a wide-ranging immigration bill now before a U.S. Senate committee is a proposal to send all future appeals in deportation and asylum cases to a court in Washington, D.C., where a single judge would have the authority to dismiss them.

The office of Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., the bill's author, says the proposal would make immigration law uniform throughout the nation and relieve the other 12 federal appeals courts — particularly those in San Francisco and New York — of a glut of immigration cases.

But immigration lawyers and the American Civil Liberties Union say the plan is ill-conceived, dangerous and a thinly veiled attack on the Ninth U.S Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, which now hears about half of the nation's immigration appeals. The critics were joined Friday by the Ninth Circuit's chief judge, Mary Schroeder.

"I don't think this is very constructive," she said in an interview. "I think it will limit representation" by requiring noncitizens to find lawyers who will travel to Washington to argue their cases.

In addition, Schroeder said, the judges on the federal Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, where the cases would be heard, "have no background" in immigration.

The change in court jurisdiction is one section of legislation sponsored by Specter, the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, that also addresses such issues as temporary legalization for undocumented workers, increased border security and foreign visas. It is now undergoing committee review, without public testimony, and could come up for a vote by the end of this week.

Illegal immigrants seeking political asylum or fighting deportation orders now take their cases first to immigration courts, staffed by Justice Department employees. They can appeal unfavorable decisions to the U.S. Court of Appeals in their region, whose judges are appointed by the president and serve for life.

Increased immigration enforcement and limits ordered on immigration court review in 2002 by then-Attorney General John Ashcroft have led to a surge in such cases at the courts of appeals. Schroeder said they now make up 40 percent of the Ninth Circuit caseload, a situation that led to recent meetings with the Justice Department in which she and other judges urged upgrading the immigration court system.

Specter's bill would leave current appeals where they are, but send all such cases in the future to the federal circuit, which now handles mostly patent and trademark cases. Its roster of 12 judges, eight of them appointed by Republican presidents, would be increased by three.

The idea, according to Specter's office, is to eliminate regional discrepancies in immigration rulings — and any incentive for illegal immigrants to look for a sympathetic court — and create a single, nationwide set of legal standards.

● Tucson immigration attorneys cringed at the proposed change to the immigration appeals process.

"For any case to have one judge and one level of appeal would be devastating, especially for political asylum cases," said Gloria Goldman, an immigration attorney since 1991 and a board member with the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

Currently, Tucson appeals go to a national board of appeals in Virginia and then to the Ninth Circuit court of appeals in San Francisco where three judges collaborate on a decision. Goldman said the proposal seems to come in response to the decisions made by the Ninth Circuit.

"They are more liberal than some of the other circuits," Goldman said. "And, I think this could be a reaction by the restrictionists."

Patricia Mejia, a Tucson immigration attorney, said appeals cases aren't that common. She usually handles about eight to 10 appeals a year, which make up about 10 percent to 20 percent of her cases.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, 42,374 cases were appealed nationwide in 2005, up 52 percent from 2001. Numbers were not available for appeals from Tucson or the Ninth Circuit.

In all, the courts handled 368,848 immigration cases in 2005, up 23 percent from 2004. In Tucson, there were 2,916 cases, down 27 percent from 2004.

Mejia said the proposal would continue with a trend that has made it more difficult for people to appeal.

"I think it would create a backlog and discourage even more people from exercising their appellate rights," said Mejia, who has practiced immigration law for four years.