AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka released the following statement this morning on creating a commonsense immigration process:

Working people, including the 12 million members of the AFL-CIO, would like to remind our elected leaders why there is no higher legislative priority than immigration reform, which must include a certain and inclusive path to citizenship and respect the rights of America’s workers.

Take the nation’s fastest growing soccer tournament, add an emphasis on academic success, a dash of workers’ rights and the Texas union movement and you’ve got a recipe for a unique and innovative Latino community outreach opportunity.

That’s what is happening this weekend in Austin, where the Texas AFL-CIO and Texas AFT are partnering with a local Univision personality at the COPA Univision amateur soccer tournament that will include both adult men’s and women’s teams and teams of boys and girls from 6 to 18 years old. They will be hosting players and their parents, as well as event spectators at a special tent on the grounds of Northeast Metro Park, the site of the two-day tournament festival.

Temporary foreign workers, from teachers to agriculture workers to au pairs, typically pay recruiting fees to individuals or agencies retained by U.S. employers seeking foreign labor. These fees can range from $500 to well over $10,000, even for temporary jobs that pay little. That means these workers arrive in the United States deeply in debt because they must borrow money, often at high interest rates.

Today, House Republicans voted 224–201 on an immigration reform amendment that would, as the Congressional Hispanic Caucus said in a tweet, "Treat DREAMers and undocumented spouses of service members in the same way as violent criminals."

Creating a commonsense immigration process, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and Sister Simone Campbell of NETWORK's Nuns on the Bus write in a Tallahassee Democrat Op-Ed, "Is fundamentally about protecting family values and defending the dignity of workers."

As commonsense immigration reform moves through the U.S. Senate, people and groups on the losing side of the debate are making outrageous claims in bogus studies and TV commercials. Let’s take a minute and revisit some of the facts about immigration reform.

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.

Over the weekend, young people watched or read about President Obama speaking at Morehouse College and first lady Michelle Obama addressing the graduates of Bowie State University. Hopefully they were inspired by seeing so many young and gifted people finishing the course they chose to follow. Well, here is a little known set of facts. 

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka released the following statement in response to the Senate Judiciary Committee's immigration bill: 

Today brings to mind Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s wise and hopeful words, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” More than 11 million aspiring Americans took a big step toward becoming citizens today with the bipartisan Senate Judiciary Committee vote. That reflects an enormous step toward healing an injustice, the deportation crisis that has wrecked families, communities and workplaces for far too long.

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