Facebook lobbyists have been pushing for immigration reform language that would allow the social network and other technology companies to avoid making a “good faith” effort to hire American employees first in a move aimed at adding more skilled foreign workers.
According to the Washington Post, Facebook and other companies have also been lobbying to have a provision included in the new immigration bill that would prevent foreign workers from being paid at higher salaries than U.S. employees.
The language is expected to be part of a provision in the new bipartisan Senate bill dealing with the H-1B visa program that allows skilled workers into the country on a temporary basis.
Facebook officials have declined to comment directly on their efforts, except to say that the company has stepped up its lobbying on the issue to improve the country's economy.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, however, has complained about the lack of enough H-1B visas to meet company demands for skilled workers that can't always be found in the United States.
Writing in an op-ed for the
Washington Post, he said, "Why do we offer so few H-1B visas for talented specialists that the supply runs out within days of becoming available each year, (when) we know each of these jobs will create two or three more American jobs in return?”
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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