Sebastian Velasquez saw his family for the last time when they were helping him move into his Georgetown University dorm before the start of his first semester. A few months later, he found out that his father, mother and sister were in deportation proceedings. They were eventually deported to Colombia.

More than 11 million aspiring citizens will have the opportunity to access a road map to citizenship under the terms of a commonsense immigration reform bill that was introduced today.

While immigration reform advocates are still examining the legislation’s 844 pages, here are highlights that address some of the united labor movement’s key immigration principles, including moving forward on creating a road map to citizenship.

It was announced over the weekend the bipartisan Senate "Gang of Eight" came to an agreement in principle on a major aspect of creating a commonsense immigration process that benefits all workers. 

This agreement includes a new kind of worker visa program called the W-Visa, which will work for everyone, not just employers. 

Read five things you need to know about this new employer-based visa after the jump. 

Neidi Dominguez came to the United States at the age of nine with her mother and younger sister. In 2008, she graduated with honors from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She has been an advocate and organizer for DREAMers and helped lead efforts to pass the federal DREAM Act. Recently, she served as a strategic campaign coordinator for the CLEAN Carwash Campaign.

The Colorado House of Representatives passed a bill on Friday that would allow DREAMer immigrant students to pay in-state tuition at state colleges and universities. The bill now goes to Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) to be signed into law, something he has indicated he will do. Only three Republicans voted for the bill.

In rallies across the country, working families made their voices heard this week and let Congress know that they want comprehensive immigration reform that includes a pathway to citizenship for the nation's 11 million aspiring Americans.

Here's a look at some of the key battles in the states over the past week.

A road map to citizenship is now a real possibility for 11 million aspiring citizens, thanks to immigration reform blueprints from President Obama and a bipartisan group of senators.

But DREAMer Rafael Lopez reminds us that it will take real hard work and persistence to make citizenship a reality for the millions of aspiring Americans. Check out Lopez's thoughts in the YouTube video in the post. 

To the lyrics of African American spirituals and freedom songs like “Guide My Feet” and “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me ’Round,” a group made up of DREAMers, their families, clergy and other people of faith in Washington, D.C., earlier today launched the nationwide Campaign for Citizenship to call on Congress to create a road map to citizenship for the country’s 11 million aspiring Americans.

In some year-end reviews of labor in 2012 (here and here), we see an important missed connection that the union movement is committed to building in 2013. While these reviews identify important worker struggles throughout the year, they fail to recognize that all workers—immigrant, public, private, low-wage and middle-class—share values and experiences that unite them in a broad-based union movement. A major theme of many of last year’s important labor struggles was how immigrant workers and the union movement came together in local communities to win justice.