By: Scott Wong
September 29, 2010 04:31 AM EDT Politico

Polls show that voters favor Republicans’ hard-line approach to immigration, and there’s virtually no chance that any immigration bill will pass before Congress adjourns for the fall campaign.

Yet two days before the Senate heads home, Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) is expected to introduce sweeping immigration legislation, a move seemingly designed to drive Hispanics and reform backers to the polls and remind them which party is still pushing for liberalized immigration laws.

Menendez’s comprehensive reform bill — which would provide a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants — will most likely die a quiet death at the end of this Congress, alongside another immigration measure known as the DREAM Act, which was blocked last week by Senate Republicans.

But Democratic strategists say there is still political wisdom in the party’s embracing, rather than running from, immigration measures during an election year.

“The conventional wisdom is that [immigration] is a bad issue for Democrats. That is wrong,â€