Facebook’s Zuckerberg calls on Supreme Court to let illegal immigrants work
America needs to grant 11 million illegal immigrants legal right to work in this country, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and others told the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday, Siliconbeat.com reports.
“The failure of our political system to make progress on modernizing our nation’s immigration system has made it harder for U.S. businesses to compete in the global marketplace,” says the “friends of the court” brief to the highest court in the land. The missive was signed by Zuckerberg and more than 60 U.S.-based employers, business leaders and organizations, including LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, Dropbox exec Aditya Agarwal, prominent VC investor Jeremy Levine, American Apparel, others.
“The existence of a large class of unauthorized workers allows unscrupulous employers to take advantage of undocumented workers’ fear of deportation — for example, by refusing to pay them the minimum wage or by failing to comply with safety standards. These practices drive down wages and create more dangerous working conditions for all American workers; they also expose law-abiding businesses to unfair competition,” the letter continued, as quoted by the source.
The filing urges the Supreme Court to uphold President Obama’s executive action on immigration reform.