Starting today, more than a million young aspiring citizens who were brought to this country as children (known as “DREAMers”) can apply for U.S. residency and a work permit under the terms of a new policy announced by the Obama Administration last month.  The application forms are posted online at the Department of Homeland Security.

Pablo Alvarado, president of the National Day Laborers’ Organizing Network, says in an op-ed in yesterday's Miami Herald that there is reason to believe attitudes are changing against the "Arizona approach" to immigration policies. Although the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the racial profiling provision of S.B. 1070, Alvarado says President Obama's announcement to halt the deportation of those young immigrants who would be eligible for U.S. residency under the terms of the DREAM Act illustrates this shift in thinking.

Lindsey Lunsford, 21, has a personal connection to the labor movement but didn’t see its relevance to her life until this week, when she participated in the AFL-CIO’s Union Summer training.

Clad in graduation robes and mortarboards, dozens of young “DREAMers,” who no longer face deportation, celebrated President Obama’s action last week that will allow them to remain in the nation in which they grew up. Welcoming the young students from the United We Dream coalition to AFL-CIO headquarters this afternoon, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said:

In this house, we’re not divided as immigrants or native-born. We are united by our vision and values—our vision of an America where hard work is fairly rewarded.

President Obama this morning will restore the dreams of as many as 1 million young aspiring citizens when he signs an executive order halting the deportation of those young immigrants who would be eligible for U.S. residency under the terms of the DREAM Act. For several years, Republican lawmakers in Congress have blocked the DREAM Act.

Ai-jen Poo director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA), and Dulce Matuz, president of the Arizona DREAM Act Coalition, have been named to the 2012 Time 100 list of the 100 most influential people in the world.

With the federal version of the DREAM Act stalled in Congress, 13 states have adopted their own versions. But those laws have become targets of right-wing extremists connected to groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

"Immigration policy is work policy,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) conference in Los Angeles this morning.

Joaquin Luna, an 18-year-old Texas DREAM Act student, recently took his life, and his family told KGBT News in Harlingen, Texas, that the young man left behind letters saying he was worried about his immigration status and the failure of Congress to pass the DREAM Act.

Tune in tonight (7-8:30 p.m. EDT) to join a live webcast of the AFL-CIO National Teach-In on jobs and the economy. Click here for the live webcast. The Teach-In is part of the AFL-CIO’s National Week of Action demanding Congress promote a real jobs agenda.