Jennifer Angarita, national worker center coordinator at the AFL-CIO, sent the following message to working family activists:

I’m going to tell you something very personal: My father finally became a citizen of the United States after almost 30 years of waiting. 

My parents brought me to the United States when I was 13 months old to escape economic hardship and war in Colombia. I grew up in Dallas and my favorite foods were pizza, chocolate chip cookies and empanadas. My parents worked hard to put me through school, and I was proud to be the first person in my family to graduate from college.

Pointing to a New York City nanny who is undocumented and has spent years raising, nurturing and keeping other people’s children safe and attended today’s Senate immigration reform hearing, Ai-Jen Poo, director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA), told lawmakers:

If immigration reform doesn’t help Pat and domestic workers and undocumented moms throughout our country, then we can’t really call it reform….It’s time we make our immigration policy work for domestic workers.

This January, Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) introduced the Immigration Innovation Act, known as "I-Squared." It will triple the number of foreign temporary workers from about 800,000 to more than 2.3 million. This will distort the labor market for jobs in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), which has only 4 million workers all told. I-Squared will seriously depress the domestic STEM labor market.

The Washington Post reported yesterday that key senators in the "Gang of Eight" negotiations over creating a commonsense immigration process are developing plans to reduce family visas, a decidedly anti-family stance. 

The united labor movement’s immigration principles are straight-forwardly pro-family: “Family reunification is an important goal of immigration policy and it is in the national interest for it to remain that way.”

Still looking for plans this week? Check out the feature-length documentary by Juan González, "Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America." Recently released in select cities, the film looks at the role of U.S. policy, including immigration and the rise of the Latino population in the United States. "Harvest Empire" tells the untold story of Latino immigrants in America.

More than 800 union members, their families, immigration advocates and community leaders rallied in front of the Arizona state Capitol yesterday to reaffirm their support for commonsense immigration reform that protects immigrants and America's workers. In a press conference before the rally, Arizona AFL-CIO Executive Director Rebekah Friend announced that the organization had adopted a resolution that calls on Congress to pass immigration reform, including a practical and inclusive road map to citizenship that reflects core American values such as fairness, equality and family unity.

Is your mom someone special? Is she an immigrant? The National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA) is spreading the word about winning dignity and respect for our immigrant moms, and for all immigrants, through a new Tumblr collection of stories called "Meet My Immigrant Mom."

Commonsense immigration reform at the national level must “offer a short and direct path to citizenship for all aspiring citizens already in the United States.” That was the first of six broad principles adopted by Virginia Coalition for Immigrant Rights, a new organization of more than a dozen community groups that gathered in Northern Virginia last Saturday. A diverse assembly of more than 100 activists came together to plan for their campaign to convince members of Congress to support “true reform” of our immigration laws that respects the dignity of every individual, strengthens families and builds a stronger economy that protects workers' rights and meets the state’s needs for a trained workforce by providing access to education for all.

Hundreds of activists representing working families rallied in Chicago on Thursday in support of commonsense immigration reform with a path to citizenship. The event was held by the Chicago Federation of Labor, Instituto del Progreso Latino and the AFL-CIO.

A coalition of immigrant rights activists, including the National Immigration Law Center (NILC), the AFL-CIO and AFSCME, submitted a letter to Congress and President Obama asking that lifelines and public services that meet basic human needs be included in commonsense immigration reform.