Coming Up on 'This Week': The Battle for the Constitution

A special Independence Day weekend edition of 'This Week.'

ByABC News
June 30, 2011, 5:43 PM

— -- Coming up on a special Independence Day weekend edition of "This Week": a celebration of the U.S. Constitution. Written more than 200 years ago as the original blueprint of democracy, the document continues to be fiercely debated in the political arena today.

We will take a close look at the Constitution and how it has shaped the course of America as well as current political debates. Does the text favor either political party's arguments? Our roundtable, including ABC News' George Will; Michael Eric Dyson, a professor at Georgetown University; Jill Lepore, a professor of history at Harvard University; and Time magazine editor-in-chief Richard Stengel take up the discussion.

Then, we'll take a look at how immigration is changing the face of America. What does it mean to be an immigrant in the U.S. today? We'll ask former D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, a first-generation American, former Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., who immigrated from Cuba as a boy, and Jose Antonio Vargas, a Pulitzer Prize-winning former reporter for the Washington Post who recently published an article acknowledging he is an undocumented immigrant.

Finally, the American dream -- hopes realized or dashed. As the middle class gets squeezed, we visit Pontiac, Mich., a city that is down and out, and struggling to recover against the odds.