Obama honors union leader who helps LA janitors become citizens

The White House honored a local union leader today for helping the workers who clean high rises in downtown Los Angeles become U.S. citizens.

David Huerta, head of the United Service Workers West, is President Obama's latest "Champion for Change" -- one of nine people honored at the White House Tuesday. The Building Skills Partnership program started in 2006 as a two-hour English class for high-rise janitors and security guards. The program has grown to include classes in computer skills and college trips for workers and their children. The union has now partnered with building owners and non-profits to offer citizenship classes.

Huerta told KPCC he wishes people could "just see what people do on a daily basis to try to earn that little slice of the American dream."

The English classes are held in the buildings where the janitors work, and they come in an hour early, on their own time, to attend. Building owners pick up the tab for  the second hour of instruction. The citizenship classes are run out of the union offices on weekends.

Thousands have taken the English classes, but a much smaller group is eligible for citizenship: just a few hundred have qualified.

Huerta says the union is counting on the President to use his executive power to do what so far Congress has not: open the door a little wider to allow undocumented workers to come out of the shadows.