Thank you. I’m Rich Trumka of the AFL-CIO, and I’m here to say that our unions and our families stand for commonsense immigration reform with a realistic and workable roadmap to citizenship. We’re going to make sure this happens, and we’re going to make sure this happens right.
 
I’d like to thank the New York City Council and Speaker Christine Quinn for providing leadership on this important issue.
 
I have just a couple points that I want to make.
 
Issue number one: Our immigration laws should allow families to stay together and not be separated.
 
This is America, and separating families is not the way we should do things -- not husbands and wives, not children and not brothers and sisters. We’re a better country than that. Families should be able to stay together. Families, including siblings and children must not pay the price of our broken policies.
 
Issue number two: Any notion that someone is different or not right for America because of the color of their skin, the language they speak, or the nation where they were born, cannot and will not be part of the debate about reform.
 
Prejudice is poisonous. It’s ugly. It’s wrong. As a nation, we will rise above discrimination. This is the 21st century, not the 1900s, when my own family was called by every dirty name in the book—WOP and I don’t know what all. The time to leave those ideas behind once and for all is right now!
 
And here’s my final point: Union members stand united for immigration reform because it will strengthen all working people—today’s union members as well as tomorrow’s─our nation’s native-born, as well as our new Americans.
 
There is absolutely no distinction between workers who were born in this country and those who came here to build a better life.
 
We’re all in the same boat, every one of us who works for a living. We rise or fall together.
 
For America to work, hard work must be fairly rewarded—and it doesn’t matter who does that work. Fairness is the foundation of the American Dream. That’s the ground floor!
 
Fairness is what we want. That’s what we need. We’re in it to win it, and that’s exactly what we’ll do!