WASHINGTON (AP) — The head of the AFL-CIO is urging President Barack Obama to take action to limit deportations of immigrants. Those deportations have reached record highs during the Obama administration.

At a panel on immigration at the labor group’s headquarters today, Richard Trumka told supporters that if they “stand together” and “act boldly,” then Obama will take action that, in Trumka’s words, will “lift our economy while making our country more just.”

Panelists vowed to punish Republicans politically for inaction on immigration legislation that passed the Senate a year ago, but stalled in the Republican-run House.

Trumka and advocates for immigrants called on Obama to provide work permits to everyone who would have been eligible for citizenship under the Senate bill. It would have extended relief to many of the 11.5 million people already in the country illegally.

Administration officials have considered expanding a program that gave work permits to more than 500,000 immigrants who were brought illegally to the country as youths, but they may be reluctant to extend it as broadly as advocates want.

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