The H-2B guest worker visa program is plagued by fraud and abuse. Designed to allow employers to hire temporary guest workers for nonagricultural labor, the H-2B program lacks provisions, which would protect workers from wage theft, forced labor, predatory recruitment fees and other forms of exploitation. Guest workers in the United States are legally tied to their employer and are often forced to assume crippling debts for the opportunity to pursue low-wage work.

A question Cuahuctemoc Salinas often gets when he tells carwash customers about the poor working conditions carwash workers experience is “So why are they still working here?”

To which he replies:

They’re afraid. Jobs are sacred right now. They have to provide for their families.

Thomas Paine, one of America’s founding fathers, is back—and weighing in on the national dialogue around immigration.

Channeling Paine, actor Ian Ruskin describes how Paine and all those who came from other countries to found the United States were—drum roll, please—immigrants (see video).

What unites working families is much more powerful than anything that divides them. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka expressed his desire to unite the labor and immigrant communities at the National Council of La Raza convention in Las Vegas, Nevada today.

Trumka spoke about the shared values the two groups have in common and how they are committed to working together to build a stronger America and a robust economy for future generations.

Here is an excerpt of his remarks:

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.

Jennifer Kauffman, AFL-CIO Immigration Policy & Training associate, sends us this. Labor and civil rights activist and icon Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers of America, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, for her lifelong work fighting for economic justice and workers’ rights.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed her pet project of "personnel reform" into law Friday, claiming it will "modernize the state's personnel system" and make state employees "more accountable and efficient, more competitive and productive." In a nutshell: All new state workers in Arizona will have no civil service protections and those on the job now are being offered a small raise to give up their protection. Public-sector workers put up vigorous opposition to the move, saying it will lead to hiring and firing based on politics and favoritism. Even conservative Arizona Republic columnist Robert Robb expressed reservations about it, warning of "potentially dangerous consequences" to turning civil servants performing crucial public functions into at-will employees.

Rev. Al Sharpton’s statement fired up a crowd of thousands standing in front of the steps of the Alabama State Capitol building in downtown Montgomery early Friday afternoon: "These laws in Alabama aren't immigration laws. They're Jim Crow laws."

Mrs. Gardner still has a firm grip when she shakes your hand. She stood at the edge of the property she and her husband, Robert, had opened up to participants in the Selma to Montgomery, Ala., marches back in 1965, as a new generation recognized her contributions while drawing attention to new injustices.

This from Brenda Loya in AFL-CIO Media Affairs.

The AFL-CIO and the National Immigration Forum (NIF) sent a joint letter yesterday to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano stressing the urgent need to change the Secure Communities program.