Thread: Trump’s Immigration Plan Targets Facebook’s Zuckerberg

Trump’s Immigration Plan Targets Facebook’s Zuckerberg

• By
• MARIE-ASTRID LANGER

Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump singled out a new enemy in his immigration reform plan: Facebook Inc. CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Mr. Trump’s immigration platform, released Sunday, calls for a curbing of the work visa program that has brought thousands of foreign engineers to Silicon Valley. Mr. Zuckerberg is part of a group of Silicon Valley executives that is lobbying for more work permits.

Mr. Trump, the GOP frontrunner, is proposing an increase in the amount paid to H-1B workers, potentially making hiring foreigners less attractive to employers. He also demands that job vacancies are offered to unemployed Americans first before they can be filled with foreigners. Mr. Trump linked immigration reform to more diversity in tech –a pressing issue for companies such as Facebook.

“This will improve the number of black, Hispanic and female workers in Silicon Valley who have been passed over in favor of the H-1B program,” the plan says. “Mark Zuckerberg’s personal Senator, Marco Rubio, has a bill to triple H-1Bs that would decimate women and minorities.”

Mr. Trump took to Twitter Tuesday to add: “I want talented people to come into this country—to work hard and to become citizens. Silicon Valley needs engineers, etc.”

Facebook declined to comment. Fwd.us, the initiative Mr. Zuckerberg founded with other leading tech figures such as Yahoo Inc.’s Marissa Mayer and Bill Gates, did not respond to requests for comment.

A spokeswoman for Microsoft Corp., another major user of H-1B visas, referred to a company blog post from last year that criticized the caps on work permits. “Restrictive skilled-immigration policy that fails to reflect the demands of the modern economy is costing U.S. jobs,” the company wrote.

Tech companies often say they lack qualified talent, and say they need more visas to get the best and brightest from overseas. Critics say some companies use H-1B visa holders as cheap labor, abusing the system.

Getting work visas for foreign job candidates is a cumbersome process. Companies have to hire lawyers to fill out the application, pay filing fees, and are still not guaranteed to get one of the visas issued each year. “The H-1B process is so ineffective, there is an automatic disincentive to hire a foreigner,” says Ava Benach, an immigration lawyer at Benach Ragland in Washington D.C. who has worked with tech companies.

Demand for H-1B visas far outstrips what the government distributes. In the fiscal year ended in April, the government received nearly 233,000 applications for 65,000 standard visas and an additional 20,000 under the advanced degree exemption, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Mr. Rubio, also a Republication presidential candidate, has in the past supported increasing the number of visas. In January, he and other senators proposed the Immigration Innovation Act which would triple the number of H-1B visas from its current level to 195,000 and remove the cap altogether on hiring foreigners who graduate from US-universities in science, engineering, math and technology.

Mr. Rubio has now back-pedaled on it, facing criticism from other Republicans on his stance.

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/0...ks-zuckerberg/

Silicon Valley Group Hits Back at Trump’s Immigration Plan

• By
• MARIE-ASTRID LANGER

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump wants to make it less attractive for Silicon Valley companies to hire foreign workers. Getty Images

A group representing tech executives including Facebook Inc. founder Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates has hit back at Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s proposal to curb work visas for skilled foreign employees.

Fwd.us, a group founded by Mr. Zuckerberg and others to lobby for issues issues important to the tech industry such as immigration reform, Wednesday argued in favor of increasing, not decreasing, the number of H-1B visas. Silicon Valley companies rely on the visas to bring in foreign engineers. Such a move would be beneficial to the U.S. economy, Fwd.us President Todd Schulte wrote in a blog post.

“The idea we should radically restrict pathways for highly-skilled immigrants to come and stay here is – again – just wrong,” he said. “The evidence is clear that high-skilled immigrants create American jobs.”

Mr. Schulte was responding to Mr. Trump’s immigration plan, released Sunday. Mr. Trump said foreign workers are using the H-1B program to take jobs away from Americans, and he wants to raise the wages paid to H-1B holders to make it less attractive to employers. Mr. Trump named Mr. Zuckerberg in his plan.

Mr. Schulte stressed the idea of startup-visas, a new category of visas for foreign entrepreneurs who want to start their businesses in the U.S. Legislative initiatives for an entrepreneur work permit have been around for years, but have so far always stalled in Congress. “Our global competitors aren’t waiting while we waste time,” Mr. Schulte wrote. In a report published last November, the White House Council of Economic Advisers stressed that new visa options could be a door-opener for about 100,000 foreign workers by 2024.

The H-1B visa program is in hot demand. This year, the 65,000 slots for H-1B visas were filled in the first week that employers could submit applications. An increase is necessary “so that we don’t run out of spots in the current yearly allotment for this critical program within only a few days every year,” Mr. Schulte said.

Restricting the volume of H-1B visas poses a serious problem for companies in their search for talent, says Yves Pitton, chairman of the Swiss-American Chamber of Commerce in San Francisco. “The war for talent is really hot here right now,” he said.

Mr. Trump appeared to distance himself from his previous remarks late Tuesday. “My H-1B reform plan will transform program so it delivers for country, not lobbyists, & will have bipartisan support,” he wrote on Twitter.

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/0...igration-plan/

They could just their operation overseas to their labor pool - wouldn't miss them

“The idea we should radically restrict pathways for highly-skilled immigrants to come and stay here is – again – just wrong,” he said. “The evidence is clear that high-skilled immigrants create American jobs.”

This is as big a lie as "free trade is good for America".

High-skilled jobs in America create American jobs.

High-skilled immigrants do not, because they take the high-skilled jobs away from Americans.

August 21, 2015: 1:34 PM ET
By Chris Isidore

The pro-immigration reform group founded by Mark Zuckerberg and other tech heavyweights is firing back at Donald Trump, saying his immigration plan would harm the U.S. economy.

The statement posted by FWD.us. President Todd Schulte doesn't identify Trump by name. But it refers to "anti-immigrant voices yelling for mass deportation." Trump unveiled an immigration plan early this week that promised much tougher enforcement and deportation policies.

"What's absurd is not just these 'plans,' but that those who would seek to represent Americans as president are falling all over themselves to support backward policies that would rip apart American families and collapse our economy," said the group's statement.

Zuckerberg was a key force behind the creation of FWD.us in 2013, which aims to increase legal immigration and a path to citizenship for many current undocumented workers. Zuckerberg's support for more immigration led Trump to criticize him by name when he released his own immigration plan this week.

FWD.us says the mass deportation of an estimated 11.5 million undocumented immigrants would cost the economy $1.7 trillion, citing a 2013 study by a Harvard economist. It said it would devastate the construction, agricultural and hospitality industries.

"Try imagining California or Florida without agriculture," said Schulte's post.

It also said mass deportations would cut payroll tax collections used to support Social Security and Medicare by $100 million.

Schulte said more H-1B visas are needed to bring in skilled foreign workers, who he said would create jobs rather than hurt American workers. Tech companies have long been pressing for an increase in H-1B visas.

Trump has argued that these visas are preventing Americans from getting jobs and depressing U.S. wages.

"Mark Zuckerberg's personal Senator, Marco Rubio, has a bill to triple H-1Bs that would decimate women and minorities," Trump said in his immigration plan. Rubio is also seeking the Republican presidential nomination.

http://money.cnn.com/2015/08/21/news...ion/index.html

"Try imagining California or Florida without agriculture," said (Todd) Schulte's post.

Try imagining the United States without unemployment and poverty.

Mark Zuckerberg group hires Priorities USA alum Todd Schulte

By MAGGIE HABERMAN | 6/24/13 6:00 AM EDT

The immigration reform group launched by Mark Zuckerberg has hired a former Priorities USA and DCCC official as its executive director as the legislative fight heads into a crucial week, officials said.

Todd Schulte, former chief of staff at Priorities USA, the pro-Obama super PAC credited with devastating ads about Mitt Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital, has been working in the role in the lead-up to Senate votes on an immigration bill this week, officials said.

He’s the executive director of FWD.us, the umbrella group that’s making a bipartisan pitch for immigration reform through an ad campaign, among other efforts. He’s also the president of the Council for American Job Growth, which is putting its efforts into outreach to progressives and independents.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/0...#ixzz3jW0rVCO7