Ana Avendaño serves as Assistant to the President and Director of Immigration and Community Action at the AFL-CIO. In that capacity, she oversees efforts to broaden the labor movement through innovative labor-community partnerships and by connecting to Latino and immigrant communities. She also advises national and local union leaders on domestic and international immigration policy and other matters that impact immigrant workers. Before joining the AFL-CIO, Ms. Avendaño served as Assistant General Counsel to the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union where she was actively involved in the development of the labor movement’s historic call for legalization and immigration reform. Ms. Avendaño is a graduate of Georgetown University Law Center and the University of California at Berkeley.
Recently, the bipartisan group of senators—known as the “Gang of Eight”—who are crafting immigration legislation in Congress signed off on yet another piece of the reform puzzle: a mechanism for new workers to come to the United States regardless of whether they have family living here or the ability to qualify for one of the existing visa programs.
Tonight at 8:30 p.m. EDT, don't forget to join the AFL-CIO for a webinar on creating an immigration process that includes a road map to citizenship and why this issue is so important.
Ana Avendaño, assistant to the president and director of immigration and community action at the AFL-CIO, sent the following message to working family activists:
Immigration has been all the buzz here in Washington, and you might have heard about it on your local news or radio station.
It’s great news, because the story of immigrants in this country is rich and complex, and there’s a lot that goes into finding a road map to citizenship for the 11 million aspiring Americans.
The prospects for comprehensive immigration reform are the highest in years. Politicians on both sides of the aisle are currently negotiating a bill, and President Obama has stated that it is one of his top legislative priorities in 2013. Speculation abounds as to what may be included in a final package but, generally speaking, comprehensive reform of our immigration system would consist of four interconnected parts: border security, internal and worksite immigration enforcement, a system to manage future immigration to the United States and a road map to citizenship for the undocumented population currently living here. The union movement has a unified framework, which addresses these points.
Sign the pledge to fight for a common-sense immigration process that creates a road map to citizenship for aspiring Americans.
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