FWD.us supporters include the who's whos of Silicon Valley. Screenshot/Jennifer Van Grove/CNET
The political action group co-founded by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is lobbying harder to get immigration reform passed in 2014, and it's doing so by calling on the state that would likely benefit the most from changes to immigration policies.
Friday, the alliance known as FWD.us kicked off a campaign to encourage every member of California's congressional delegation to demand votes on immigration reform this year. The campaign will include ramping up advocacy efforts and hosting events for leaders of various communities in the state.
Launched by Zuckerberg in April of 2013, FWD.us is a political action group whose supporters include Silicon Valley heavy-hitters such as Microsoft's Bill Gates, Kleiner Perkins' John Doerr, Yahoo's Marissa Mayer, Napster co-founder Sean Parker, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, and investor Ron Conway.
The new California push is part of the FWD.us agenda to get more visas for high-skilled workers, which Zuckerberg and friends believe is essential to narrowing a skills gap that is adversely affecting the US economy. There's currently a very limited supply of H-1B visas, or visas available to companies temporarily employing foreign workers for high-skilled jobs.
Immigration legislation, penned by Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer and seven other senators, passed in the Senate last June. The bill, which would immediately raise the H-1B visa threshold to 110,000 in one year and include a formula for even more visas, has been stymied in the House of Representatives.
"The House Republicans are failing to lead and act on immigration reform," FWD.us Executive Director Todd Schulte said on a conference call Friday afternoon. Their actions are holding California back in its ability to innovate, he said.
Schulte roped in Congressman Scott Peters, who represents the San Diego area, to support the cause. "I've heard from all my technology companies that they're still having a hard time finding enough people to do the high-technology jobs they have," Schulte said.
Without immigration reform, he said, California faces the risk of losing the next Qualcomm or Google to another country.
"As the fifth-largest economy in the world, arguably no other state in the country has as much to gain as California from fixing the country's fundamentally broken immigration system," the FWD.us coalition said in a press release.
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Zuckerberg's FWD.us to Calif. leaders: Fix 'broken' immigration system now