Organizers from various groups joined forces nationwide, as hundreds of demonstrators marched the streets urging leaders in Washington to produce an immigration reform bill that considers citizenship to undocumented immigrants.

“I’m here supporting the right for people to come out of the shadows,” said Alfonso Pines, one of many protesters in attendance last Wednesday.

San Francisco, Washington D.C, Atlanta, Los Angeles and cities throughout the country marched on behalf of the roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants living within the U.S. and nearly 2.8 million live in California alone, according to census data analyzed by the Pew Hispanic Center.

“We are here in support of Congress taking leadership and action on delivering immigration reform,” said Lauren Jacobs, who is affiliated with United Services West, an organization that represents 40,000 immigrant property service workers throughout California.

For Olda Madera, a demonstrator from the Latino Caucus of the Laborer’s International Union of America, Liuna and the millions of people in parallel predicaments, the bill sets forth a process towards citizenship that includes, background checks, monetary penalties, repayment of any back taxes and a 10-year wait before applying for a green card.

“I want papers like everyone else,” said Madera. “They don’t say I’m illegal when I’m paying my taxes, they accept my taxes.”

Despite Madera’s contribution to this country, her undocumented status prohibits her from returning home to visit her children and loved ones.

“It has been 10 years without seeing my family, my daughters, my mom…everybody,” said Madera.

Currently, Mexican-born children of U.S. residents have to wait “nearly 20 years,” to receive a family reunification visa, compared to seven years for Indian and Chinese, stated a Pew Research report.

“One thing I would like to get rid of is the splitting of families,” said Zermeno. “They take the father and deport the father, next thing you know they have a split family; that’s not right.”

The Obama administration “hit record levels” of deportation rates compared to other presidents during their terms.  Which according to the Hispanic Pew research center is,   “Approximately 30 percent higher than the annual average [deportations] during the second term of the Bush administration.”

Zermeno feels the bill will be a positive progression for undocumented people who have been contributing to their communities and participating in non-criminal activities.

Specifically, Zermeno talked about the “path to citizenship,” which he feels gives a “sense of security” to the undocumented workers filling the jobs that, he says, no one else wants. Jobs like the ones that the Hayward Labor Center offers to roughly around “500 undocumented residents,” Hayward reported last year, explained Zermeno.

Immigration reform will not only affect the Hispanic community, but also impact the undocumented Asian immigrants in the Bay Area.  Terrence Valen, organizational director of the Filipino Community Center in San Francisco attending Wednesday’s rally came to represent approximately 1 million undocumented Filipinos and over 500 workers trafficked from the Philippines on the guest worker program.

“In a lot of cases, Filipino teachers, nurses, oil rig workers, hotel workers and caregivers are being trafficked on fraudulent contracts and exploited as basically, indentured servants and sometimes imprisoned like modern day slaves,” Valen said.

Dr. Jennifer Ong, a member of the Democratic Women’s Caucus, feels that the immigration reform needs to also address the companies that hire and make products that come from exploited labor.

“It’s never talked about. To the same extent of how evil that part is how exploitative it is from that part,” said Ong.

Congress will determine the next chapter of undocumented lives here in the United States.  Eight senators, known as the “Gang of 8,” have painstakingly completed the first bill for immigration reform and releasing it to members of Congress this week, according to The Washington Post.