The AFL-CIO launched a three-day national immigration training program on Tuesday to help undocumented immigrants take advantage of President Obama's executive order for new immigration relief measures.

Activists, labor unions and immigrant rights advocates from across the country gathered in Washington, D.C. for trainings, workshops and strategy sessions designed to galvanize immigrant workers.

One focus of the initiative was to prep attendees on how to help others in need of protection under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA), and Obama's proposal to expand DACA, which would protect up to 5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation.

Although a Texas immigration judge has temporarily blocked the new and expanded DACA and the entry into force of DAPA authorized by the president, the AFL-CIO said that assisting immigrants illegally in the U.S. is the "morally right thing to do," reports NBC News.

"This practical, hands-on training will provide labor union members, activists and leaders with all the tools necessary to realize the promise of the recent executive actions on immigration to improve standards for all working people and strengthen communities where our members work and live," states the AFL-CIO in a press release about the program. "Participants will be trained to assist as many eligible workers as possible to gain rights on the job by applying for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) programs and to encourage qualified legal permanent residents to become U.S. citizens."

AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka opened the event on Tuesday, declaring the union's mission to end the exploitation of immigrant workers and to welcome them to the "house of labor."

"The American middle class has been built on struggle and rises on the shoulders of workers, workers coming out of the shadows," Trumka said. "Now we're opening up our union halls to bring another generation of immigrants into the house of labor."

He went on to describe the millions of immigrants who would benefit under Obama's immigration measures are Americans "in every way except on paper."

"The voices against immigration reform, if you brush everything else aside, are really colored by bigotry," he added.