In the immigration plan he released Sunday, Donald Trump slammed Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg for making the path easier for immigrants to land jobs at high-tech firms.
Trump pointed out that—unlike his own preference of forcing employers to pay H-1B workers more, thus discouraging their hiring—Zuckerberg champions an increase in the number of H-1B visas available to tech employers. Trump also prefers that tech companies hire Americans first.
Trump wrote of his plan, “This will improve the number of black, Hispanic and female workers in Silicon Valley who have been passed over in favor of the H-1B program. Mark Zuckerberg’s personal Senator, Marco Rubio, has a bill to triple H-1Bs that would decimate women and minorities.”
Rubio, along with Sen. Orrin Hatch, Sen. Jeff Flake, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Sen. Chris Coons, and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, brought the Immigration Innovation bill (“I-Squared”), which would raise the annual cap on H-1B visas from 65,000 to 115,000. Zuckerberg joined Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer to form Fwd.us, which pushes for more H-1B visas.
Trump believes that the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) have enough Americans ready and able to fill the high-tech job industry.
Ron Hira, a Howard University public policy professor, unwittingly revealed the real reason companies like Facebook want an increase in H-1B visas when he stated, “I don’t think you should eliminate the H1-B program. The problem is it’s being abused and it’s a source of very cheap labor.”