The founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, is continuing to be involved in activism relating to the immigration debate in the United States, hosting today’s premiere of Jose Antonio Vargas’ Documented. The entrepreneur is to speak at the screening and will for the first time be addressing the broader immigration debate instead of just focusing solely on the need for giving highly skilled immigrants in the tech industry visas.
“Jose’s story has resonated,” says the co-founder of FWD.us, Joe Green. “He’s part of the tech community, he covered us as tech journalist. So when we first saw Jose’s documentary, it showed the human part of it.” The documentary about the struggle of undocumented immigrants intends to humanize the debate, which has a tendency to polarize and stereotype those involved.
Supporters of the United States adopting a more inclusive immigration policy are happy with the remarkable level of support that Zuckerberg has shown for the cause, with the founder of immigration advocacy group America’s Voice, Frank Sharry, saying that it was remarkable that Zuckerberg was fighting for the pathway to US citizenship to be offered to the 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the country, and not limiting his concern to increasing US visas for high skilled immigrants in his own industry.
Bill Gates, Sean Parker, Ruchi Sanghvi, Eric Schmidt and Aditya Agarwal are among the other famous supporters of FWD.us. Immigration advocates are hoping that the presence of prominent business leaders will push the US government into taking some positive steps on the issue.