In this video from the Nevada State AFL-CIO, Allie tells her story of what it's like to grow up as a DREAMer, including the challenges she faced and her hopes for the future.
Learn why Allie supports a commonsense immigration process with a road map to citizenship, and check out the Nevada federation's Facebook page for more videos .
The U.S. Senate today voted 84-15 to begin debate on the Gang of Eight's immigration bill, The Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013, after Republicans failed to muster a filibuster. The legislation provides a road map to citizenship for aspiring Americans.
This week , working families are calling 27 U.S. senators and urging them to vote for an immigration reform bill that provides a reliable road map to citizenship for more than 11 million aspiring Americans. The bill is expected to reach the floor of the Senate this week, and the labor movement is ramping up its national campaign in support of the bill through phone calls, Internet advertisements and by having more than 50 leaders and allies from 24 states fly to Washington, D.C., to lobby elected officials on Wednesday, the first full day of Senate debate.
This past week, state-level coalitions in Nevada and California organized immigration policy town hall meetings where attendees called for a comprehensive immigration process that includes a road map to citizenship. The Nevada State AFL-CIO helped put together an Asian and Pacific Islander Town Hall in Las Vegas, where more than 100 of the state's residents participated. Meanwhile, in Salinas, Calif., the Monterey Bay Central Labor Council helped organize the Spanish-language Univision Town Hall, which attracted more than 500 attendees.
Last week , in an effort to pursue long-delayed justice, three of America's largest law firms filed lawsuits against Signal International on behalf of many of these men, and at least five more major law firms have agreed to represent many more. In an unprecedented pro bono collaboration, the firms will collectively represent more than 200 former guest workers in these suits, which charge that the men were subjected to forced labor and fraud that rose to the level of racketeering and human trafficking.
When Microsoft, Oracle, Facebook and the other big-time cyber giants say they need to import more foreign high-tech workers and then put on a full-scale lobbying assault to up the number of H-1B visas allowed in the immigration reform bill now under consideration, what are they really after? AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka has the answer in an op-ed in today’s edition of USA Today .
This is about powerful companies pursuing lower wages.
Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) has offered a series of amendments to the commonsense immigration bill (S. 744), currently under consideration in the U.S. Senate, designed to fix what many see as flaws in the bill that weaken families. If approved, the amendments would make the bill more focused on keeping families intact, long an important principle in the U.S. immigration system. More than 200 organizations signed a letter in support of the amendments.
Why do Microsoft, Facebook, Google and Oracle want to hire foreign high-tech workers instead of qualified U.S. workers? They won’t admit it, but it is because they can—and do—pay them less. That’s why they are pushing so hard for a series of amendments from Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) that would remove provisions in the immigration bill under consideration that give qualified U.S. workers the first shot at those high-tech jobs.
Get your slingshots ready #TechGoliaths trying 2strip wkr protections and make it easier to fire and displace US wkrs #CIRmarkup
— Andrea DiBitetto (@andiezd) May 16, 2013
Before a company, say Oracle, would be allowed to recruit and hire foreign workers under the H1B visa program in the draft of the immigration bill now under consideration in the Senate, it first must give U.S. workers who are equally or better qualified the first shot at the jobs. That sounds like a patriotic no-brainer.
But recent news reports outline a huge lobbying effort by high-tech firms—like Google and Microsoft—to get those pro-U.S. worker provisions out of the bill.
Recently, the Heritage Foundation released a report condemning the current push for resolving America’s moral dilemma over immigration. One of its co-authors, Jason Richwine, has a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University. But, it turns out that his dissertation concluded that Hispanic immigrants have low intelligence and will have grandchildren in America, with low intelligence. Now, the Heritage Foundation has made several efforts to distance themselves from that work, painstakingly pointing out that Richwine worked at the American Enterprise Institute when he was working on his dissertation.
It’s been four years since low-wage workers got a raise. Sign the petition to tell Congress it’s time to raise the minimum wage.
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