The mainstream media often distorted the Federations position by suggesting that the AFL-CIO was somehow opposed to progressive reform. In fact, the AFL-CIO like Change to Win believes in and promotes comprehensive immigration reform that provides a path to citizenship. Simply relegating immigrant workers to permanent status as "other" does not help.

The Communication Workers of America put it this way:

"Workers' rights must be at the heart of immigration reform. That's why it is critical that Congress reject the Bush administration efforts to expand "guest worker" programs, particularly the H-1B program and related visas that are provided to employers for technology workers and others supposedly in short supply in the US.
Employers in the United States have sought to use guest worker programs to turn tens of thousands of permanent, good paying jobs into temporary jobs. Using the L and H-1B visa programs, employers have brought in thousands of workers to temporarily work as computer programmers, software engineers and designers and in other technical and professional positions, displacing employees in those jobs and lowering working conditions for all.
This exploitation of both U.S.-born and immigrant technical and professional workers has had a chilling effect on the employment, real earnings and working conditions of these professionals."

While there are many issues surrounding the immigration debate that we must fundamentally address from racism to isolationism, this new effort between the AFL-CIO and NDLON places the centrality of workers' rights correctly at the forefront of the agenda. Now let's see what happens.