Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan have pledged $5m towards a scholarship fund for hundreds of undocumented immigrant students in the Bay Area. The donation will be made via TheDream.US, which was originally founded by Facebook board member and former publisher of the Washington Post Donald Graham.
“America was founded as a nation of immigrants. We ought to welcome smart and hardworking young people from every nation, and to help everyone in our society achieve their full potential,” Graham declared on his own Facebook page. “If we help more young immigrants climb the ladder to new opportunities, then our country will make greater progress.”Zuckerberg has long been a vocal supporter of immigration reform, having previously described it as the “biggest civil rights issue of our time” and creating the group known as FWD.us, which has spent millions of dollars lobbying Washington DC over the issue. FWD.us is generally concerned with increasing the number of technology workers from outside the United States; however, in 2013 it stages a hackathon for Dreamers ‒ young undocumented immigrants who came to the US as minors ‒ in Silicon Valley.
The Zuckerbergs donation will fund 400 scholarships for students in the Bay Area, marking the second time the couple has made such a contribution. In 2014 Zuckerberg and Chan donated $2.5m to the scholarship fund.