By the end of 2013, Latinos will make up 40% of California's population. By the end of 2050, that number will rise to 48%. The growing Latino and immigrant communities in California are changing the way Californians view immigration reform, New York Times' Jennifer Medina writes. In a state where, a generation ago, voters passed what is considered one of the most anti-immigrant ballot initiatives, recent polls show a dramatic shift in perception of aspiring Americans. Californians now say that "immigrants are a benefit to the state, according to public opinion polls from the Public Policy Institute of California."

Georgia's working families, including the Georgia AFL-CIO and the Atlanta-North Georgia Labor Council, joined several lawmakers at the state Capitol today to present a resolution that supports a pathway to citizenship for 11 million aspiring Americans.

One of the most oft-repeated lessons of the 2012 election is that America's growing population of immigrants is a force to be reckoned with. While many of us in the labor movement have known this for a long time, recently released figures drive this lesson home—bucking the national trend, California has witnessed rising union membership largely due to organizing drives in sectors with high immigrant populations, including home care aides, car wash workers and scientific researchers. This powerful partnership between the labor and immigrant communities is key to strengthening the worker's rights movement and will be a major factor in immigration reform.

Comprehensive immigration reform with a road map to citizenship is essential to all of America’s workers, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said in a telephone press conference today, as he and Maria Elena Durazo, chair of the AFL-CIO’s immigration Committee, announced the labor movement’s campaign for a common-sense immigration process.

There is a deep and personal reason AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka is passionate about enacting immigration reform that provides a real pathway to citizenship for 11 million immigrants who call this country home. In a post today on Daily Kos, he writes:

When people use the word 'immigrant' like an epithet, I take it personally. I come from a small town in southwestern Pennsylvania’s coal country called Nemacolin. It was not easy when my family came to this country. My parents and grandparents fled poverty and war from different corners of Europe. 

The North Carolina State AFL-CIO joined with immigrant workers and advocates, the civil rights community and local community organizations to reaffirm its support for comprehensive immigration reform that protects America's workers, including aspiring citizens. Secretary-Treasurer MaryBe McMillan of the North Carolina federation announced the adoption of a resolution by the state and local AFL-CIO, which calls on Congress to pass commonsense immigration reform that includes a practical and inclusive road map to citizenship and reflects core American values such as fairness, equality and family unity.

Temporary worker programs in the United States are often presented as a “win-win” process, by which employers and foreign workers come together to both fill industry shortages and meet the needs of immigrant workers on a seasonal basis. Each year, hundreds of thousands of people are recruited from abroad to work on a vast array of temporary visas, in a wide range of industries, from low-wage jobs in agriculture and landscaping, to higher-wage jobs in technology, nursing and teaching. Yet, few discuss how these workers come to the United States and under what terms. Regardless of their visa, internationally recruited workers face disturbingly common patterns of abuse, including fraud, discrimination, economic coercion, blacklisting and, in some cases, forced labor, debt bondage and human trafficking.

Putting the nation’s 11 million aspiring citizens on a path to citizenship is not—as many Republican House lawmakers have characterized—the “extreme” option for immigration reform, San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro told a House Judiciary Committee hearing today.

Putting them on a path to citizenship, that’s the best option.

Remember Brian Bilbray? The hardline anti-immigrant congressman-turned-FAIR-lobbyist-turned-congressman-turned-forced-retiree? Well, Bilbray—before his most recent electoral defeat—was the head of a group of anti-immigrant members of the House of Representatives called the “Immigration Reform Caucus.” To avoid confusion about what real reform looks like, we prefer to call it the Bully Brigade. Bilbray had inherited the caucus from Tom Tancredo—now, without either of them in the House anymore, it looks like the caucus has been quietly sent into (at least temporary) retirement as well.

Oscar came to the United States at the age of 16 to work. There were no jobs for him in his native Guatemala, and he felt obligated to help support his parents.

He was lured across borders by the promise of work. He believed, as so many immigrants do, that there would be a job for him in America.

For the past five years, he has worked at a Los Angeles carwash that cheated him and other immigrant workers out of pay, refused protective gear and even denied drinking water.