BET.com: Rep. Maxine Waters is celebrating this week

Like most of her colleagues this week, Rep. Maxine Waters is somewhat somber, reflecting on the life of Dorothy Height.

But the Congresswoman from California also has good reason to celebrate – and she is.

Earlier this week President Obama signed a bill Waters wrote into law. It's a debt relief act for Haiti that will relieve the earthquake-ravaged country of hundreds of millions of dollars  it owes to the United States.

"I authored this legislation because Haiti's immense debt burden would have severely impeded the country's recovery effort," says Waters, who is now putting pressure on international aid agencies to do the same.

The U.S. law directs the U.S. Secretary of Treasury and the U.S. Executive Directors at the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and other international aid agencies to use their influence and vote to cancel all of Haiti's debt immediately; suspend debt payment arrangements and, moving forward, provide aid to Haiti in the form of grants instead of loans.

After that big win this week, the Congresswoman, who has been a longtime advocate for Haiti,  now has her eyes on immigration reform and the firestorm it has sparked in Arizona.

"As the representative for a diverse district in California that is heavily impacted by immigration, I understand that America's broken immigration system has had disastrous consequences for our nation," she says.  

Waters says her vision for immigration reform includes stronger border security, electronic employment verification, reforming the family visa system, providing a pathway to citizenship, making the citizenship processes more accessible; and, overall, strengthening the economy.