Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s lobbying group FWD.us has filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court along with other tech leaders, supporting the executive actions on immigration reform taken by President Barack Obama in November 2014. The President’s actions will confer new rights upon a certain category of undocumented immigrants living here. However, those actions were blocked after a case was filed against it by Texas and other Republican-led American states. The Supreme Court is more likely to hear the United States v. Texas case in April 2016. If the Supreme Court hears arguments in the case in April, as scheduled, a ruling can be expected in June 2016.
The brief FWD.us filed was signed by Amplify LA, Care.com, Strong Ventures, HomeHero, Reid Hoffman, Jeremy Levine, Ron Conway and Max Levchin, apart from Mark Zuckerberg. Immigration is one of the most important issues that many tech leaders are willing to fight for. Most of them are in favor of the President Obama’s actions that would let undocumented immigrants, whose children are green card holders or U.S. citizens, and undocumented youth who were minors when they were brought the U.S., to stay here.
The brief FWD.us has filed claims that the President’s actions on immigration reform would increase America’s gross domestic product by billions of dollars, if approved by the Supreme Court. In the brief, reiterating its support for the President’s actions, FWD.us wrote “Instead of inviting the economic contributions of immigrants, our immigration enforcement policies have often inhibited the productivity of U.S. companies and made it harder for them to compete in the global marketplace, America’s immigration enforcement policies should ensure that immigrants’ ingenuity, skills, and entrepreneurial spirit are contributing to the U.S. economy.”
Zuckerberg also wrote on Facebook the reasons why his lobbying group has filed a brief and why he supports immigration reform. He wrote, “As I travel around the world, I see many nations turning inwards. I hear growing voices for building walls and distancing people labelled as ‘other.’ Whether it’s refugees, undocumented immigrants or under represented minorities, I hope we have the wisdom to understand that the best path forward is always to bring people together, not divide them. We are a nation of immigrants. We are one world. And we are all connected. We must have the humanity to welcome these children and to bring people together — and that’s what we told the Supreme Court today.”
However, critics claim that if the Supreme Court allows the programs President Obama implemented to stand, it might be difficult to prevent future presidents from taking executive actions on other controversial issues, without the approval of the U.S. Congress.