Gaby Pacheco, the leader of the DREAM youth movement from Miami and one of the co-founders of Students Working for Equal Rights, tells her story in a recent TEDx Talk. Pacheco moved to the United States from Ecuador when she was eight. She grew up a hardworking student who was elected student government president of Miami Dade Community College and the statewide community college student government organization. Along the way she faced many obstacles as an aspiring citizen, from an encounter with the Ku Klux Klan to the inability to find work because of her lack of papers verifying citizenship.

Clad in graduation robes and mortarboards, dozens of young “DREAMers,” who no longer face deportation, celebrated President Obama’s action last week that will allow them to remain in the nation in which they grew up. Welcoming the young students from the United We Dream coalition to AFL-CIO headquarters this afternoon, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said:

In this house, we’re not divided as immigrants or native-born. We are united by our vision and values—our vision of an America where hard work is fairly rewarded.

Our elected leaders should act quickly to protect the interests of our nation’s youth and working people by enacting the DREAM Act and by bringing relief to these young people who continue to be jailed and deported, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said.