{"id":5828,"date":"2014-02-04T17:07:42","date_gmt":"2014-02-04T22:07:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/live-immigrationreform.pantheonsite.io\/?p=5828"},"modified":"2018-12-28T15:14:15","modified_gmt":"2018-12-28T20:14:15","slug":"dont-let-facebook-get-its-birthday-wish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/2014\/02\/04\/dont-let-facebook-get-its-birthday-wish\/","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t Let Facebook Get Its Birthday Wish"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"zuckerberg\"Programmers ought to give Facebook a \u201cDISLIKE\u201d button for the social media platform\u2019s 10th<\/sup> birthday. No doubt, a lot of people would like to use such a button to register their disapproval of the company\u2019s lobbying effort for massive high-skilled immigration increases.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s define its advocacy status. \u00a0Facebook entered a relationship with its lobbying arm FWD.us in 2009.\u00a0 It went<\/a> from 2 lobbyists in 2009 and ballooned to 38 experienced lobbyists in 2013.\u00a0 Recent hires include Speaker John Boehner\u2019s (R-Ohio) former deputy director of communications and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi\u2019s (D-Calif.) former chief of staff.\u00a0 These former House aides are out lobbying for more foreign high-skilled workers, but there are actually many high-skilled Americans who are out of work or underemployed. Two-thirds<\/a> of the more than 9 million people in the U.S. with degrees in science, engineering, or mathematics are working in other fields.<\/p>\n

Check in.\u00a0 Well, for Facebook, there were actually lots<\/i> of checks in.\u00a0 Facebook spent $6.4 million<\/a> in lobbying last year.\u00a0 That\u2019s nearly twice the amount it dropped the previous year and 4 times<\/a> as much as two years ago.\u00a0 The increasing amounts of money recently were spent to get the Senate mass amnesty bill passed.\u00a0 Facebook succeeded by getting a carve-out<\/a> in the Senate mass amnesty bill, S. 744, that would eviscerate the requirement that Facebook make a \u201cgood faith\u201d effort to hire Americans before getting foreign labor with H-1B visas.\u00a0\u00a0 Now FWD.us continues the push to get the House to follow suit, by dropping $750,000<\/a> for only 10 days of ads on immigration.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s on Facebook\u2019s news feed?\u00a0 Scroll down a bit, and find Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg\u2019s Washington Post<\/a> op-ed last year.\u00a0 He made the statement that \u201cIn a knowledge economy, the most important resources are the talented people we educate and attract to our country.\u201d\u00a0 Note that he said \u201cattract to\u201d not \u201chire in.\u201d\u00a0 Zuckerberg considers foreign labor most important, not American workers.\u00a0\u00a0 Between 2009 and 2012 during this knowledge economy that the tech industry is benefiting from, 67%<\/a> of new jobs went to foreign-born workers.<\/p>\n

Who is Facebook friends with?\u00a0 There are some familiar connections here, as founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg launched the FWD.us lobbying arm by friending some powerful contacts in the technology world. \u00a0Along with the help<\/a> from Microsoft\u2019s Bill Gates, Google\u2019s Eric Schmidt, Yahoo\u2019s Marissa Mayer, Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom, it bankrolled the massive lobbying effort.\u00a0 And what do all these friends join together for?\u00a0 These tech industry leaders want something like the Senate immigration bill<\/a>, which triples the number of so-called skilled (H-1B visa) guest workers who may enter the U.S. annually and exempts green card holders with advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering and math, from the cap on employment-based immigration. Both of these efforts will dramatically increase competition for Americans entering or working in those fields.\u00a0 Apparently, these tech industries are no friend to the American worker.<\/p>\n

The increasing involvement of Facebook in the immigration debate, at the expense of American workers, is unfortunately, not something to celebrate.