As the proud daughter and granddaughter of Mexican immigrants whose family planted their roots in Chicago in the 1970s, I know there are millions of hardworking families in Chicago and throughout our country just like mine who are undeniably part of the fabric of America.

And despite paying nearly $100 billion in federal, state and local taxes each year –including paying billions in Medicare and Social Security taxes– undocumented immigrants are excluded from the benefits those taxes support. That’s not fairness.

For years, Democrats and Republicans alike have failed to fix a deeply unjust and inhumane immigration system, leaving millions undocumented. That failure has allowed money-hungry employers to take advantage of people for cheap labor and use people's undocumented status as a weapon to weaken the bargaining power of U.S.-born workers.

Think about it: When U.S.-born workers demand higher pay, some employers choose instead to exploit undocumented workers’ vulnerable status to drive wages down for everyone. This hurts both groups and keeps us divided instead of united.

Building the leverage we need to force change requires us to take away the weapon they've used to keep working people divided and weaken our collective labor power.

A pathway to citizenship is a tool for strengthening the power of working people. It helps advance fairness and opportunity, while also empowering undocumented immigrants to stand up against corporate greed, their own exploitation, and inequality by removing the threat of detention and deportation that is constantly used against them.

Just imagine what is possible if we remove the threat of family separations and mass abductions and ensure immigrant workers can unionize with their colleagues and join forces to demand livable wages and safer working conditions.

We haven't had the leverage yet to bring about the changes our communities desperately need. It's time to get serious about how we build that leverage. It comes from strengthening the working class, and immigrants are apart of that.

As your Congresswoman, I would:

• Strongly support and fight for a pathway to citizenship

• Work to stop mass abductions and raids in our cities

• Block taxpayer dollars from going to ICE and CBP and advance legislation to abolish ICE

• Reinvest the billions of taxpayer dollars the Trump Administration is stealing for militarized raids and give it back to our schools, hospitals, and communities.