While, according to official government statistics, union density declined last year, there were a handful of states that actually saw an increase in membership. California placed at the top of this list.

The Obama administration should suspend deportations of aspiring citizens who would be eligible for a pathway to citizenship under a commonsense immigration reform bill that is under consideration in the U.S. Senate, a group of labor—including the AFL-CIO—Latino and other immigration reform advocates told the White House earlier this week.

I can’t remember how old I was before I knew my father was undocumented. By the time I was 5 or 6, my father’s long and arduous journey from Michoacán, Mexico, to our small American town of Redwood City, Calif., had already become part of our family lore. I heard how hard and exhausting it was for him, as a young boy and then a teen, to have to work every day picking cotton, strawberries and grapes in 100-degree heat. His stories captured my imagination when I considered how hard he worked and how far he had come to make a better life for himself.

Why does America’s union movement support commonsense immigration reform that includes a road map to citizenship? Because of hardworking people like Neidi Dominguez’s mother. Watch this new ad from the AFL-CIO that is appearing on Univision in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Dallas, Houston and Austin, Texas.   

Visit www.aflcio.org/citizenshipnow.

Sebastian Velasquez saw his family for the last time when they were helping him move into his Georgetown University dorm before the start of his first semester. A few months later, he found out that his father, mother and sister were in deportation proceedings. They were eventually deported to Colombia.

Forty faith, labor and community activists prayed, sang and protested outside Manchester’s Norris Cotton Federal Building this afternoon to express outrage about recent actions by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers in area homes and businesses.

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.

Thousands of working families rallied at the U.S. Capitol yesterday to support a commonsense immigration process that will include a road map to citizenship for the nation's 11 million aspiring Americans. 

See the tweets from yesterday below from AFL-CIO Latino and AFL-CIO digital strategist Jessica Morales, along with other ally groups.

Change your Facebook and Twitter avatars. 

Ana Avendaño, assistant to the president and director of immigration and community action at the AFL-CIO, will appear on the Melissa Harris-Perry show on MSNBC Saturday morning at 10 a.m. EDT to discuss creating a commonsense immigration process for America's 11 million aspiring citizens. 

Follow the Melissa Harris-Perry show and Avendaño on Twitter.

This week, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) joined what Washington Post's Greg Sargent calls the "slow down" caucus. Meaning Rubio, who is a member of the "Gang of Eight", and a group of Republicans are starting to back away from creating a commonsense immigration process for the nation's 11 million aspiring citizens.