Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has pulled the cover off his immigration reform group, outlining its position and naming its advocates in a Washington Post op-ed.
He starts off with an anecdote about a young, undocumented student that he teaches in an after-school class on entrepreneurship. The kid’s family is from Mexico, but he’s live in America basically his whole life. Zuckerberg recalls how the student relating his worries about being able to go to college, given his situation.
“These students are smart and hardworking, and they should be part of our future,” says Zuckerberg.
And with that, Zuckerberg announced FWD.us.
“I am proud to announce FWD.us, a new organization founded by leaders of our nation’s technology community to focus on these issues and advocate a bipartisan policy agenda to build the knowledge economy the United States needs to ensure more jobs, innovation and investment.”
And here some of those tech leaders that have joined Zuckerberg on the project:
Reid Hoffman, Eric Schmidt, Marissa Mayer, Drew Houston, Ron Conway, Chamath Palihapitiya, Joe Green, Jim Breyer, Matt Cohler, John Doerr, Paul Graham, Mary Meeker, Max Levchin, Aditya Agarwal and Ruchi Sanghvi.
“Today’s students should have the same opportunities – but our current system blocks them. We have a strange immigration policy for a nation of immigrants. And it’s a policy unfit for today’s world,” says Zuckerberg.
Zuckerberg gives a basic outline of FWD.us’ agenda. He says that comprehensive immigration reform starts with effective border security and also allows a “path to citizenship” that lets America benefit from its best and brightest. He also calls for higher standards in schools and “investment in breakthrough discoveries in scientific research and assurance that the benefits of the inventions belong to the public and not just to the few.”
Not too specific on the goals thus far, but the message is clear: we have to start keeping the talent here, instead of letting it slip away to other countries.
Zuckerberg says that the group will “work with members of Congress from both parties, the administration and state and local officials. We will use online and offline advocacy tools to build support for policy changes, and we will strongly support those willing to take the tough stands necessary to promote these policies in Washington.”
You can visit FWD.us, today, and connect via Facebook (surpirse, surprise). FWD.us’ landing page asks visitors to “join the tech community in passing immigration reform.”
