Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg this week unveiled FWD.us, a new political action group that will focus on immigration reform - specifically how to expand the pool of available visas for highly skilled workers.
Zuckerberg announced FWD.us in an editorial that argued for a "knowledge economy" where "the most important resources are the talented people we educate and attract to our country."
Joining Zuckerberg as founders of FWD.us are LinkedIn chief Reid Hoffman, venture capitalists John Doerr and Ron Conway, Dropbox CEO Drew Houston, and more. Executives from Airbnb, Y Combinator, Netflix, Yelp, Groupon, Path, Zynga, Jawbone, Yammer, and Instagram are listed as major contributors, as are Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer and Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt.
"We believe that we have a responsibility to work together to ensure that all members of our society gain from the rewards of the modern knowledge economy," Zuckerberg said.
FWD.us will lobby Congress for change, and use online and offline advocacy tools to build support for policy changes, he said. Specifically, FWD.us wants comprehensive immigration reform that promotes border security but also promotes a path to citizenship, a greater focus on science and technology in schools, and greater resources for science research and development.
"Across America, creative, hardworking people in coffee shops, dorm rooms and garages are creating the next era of growth. Let's embrace our future as a knowledge economy and help them — and all of us — reach our full potential," Zuckerberg wrote.
The launch of FWD.us comes several days after the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced that it reached its cap of 65,000 H-1B visas for fiscal year 2014 in just one week. The agency received 124,000 applications, and used a computer-generated process to select the 65,000 people who received the visas. Another 20,000 people will receive H-1B visas under an advanced degree exemption.
The H-1B visa program provides visas to highly skilled workers who will be working in a specialty occupation here in the U.S. Recipients can stay in the country for up to three years, a period that can be extended to six years.
The tech industry has longed lobbied for the U.S. to issue more H-1B visas. The cap means, for example, that many talented individuals receive advanced degrees at U.S. universities, but are forced to return home upon graduation.
According to Zuckerberg, this is "a strange immigration policy for a nation of immigrants."
The Facebook CEO said his great-grandparents came through Ellis Island, and started a family of civil servants, doctors, and entrepreneurs. "None of this could have happened without a welcoming immigration policy, a great education system and the world's leading scientific community that created the Internet," Zuckerberg said.
FWD.us has offices in Washington, D.C. and Silicon Valley. Joe Green, who founded Facebook's online fundraising platform, Causes, will serve as the group's president.
FWD.us comes as a joint NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found strong support for immigration reform in the U.S. Immigration reform legislation is expected in the next few days.