Zuckerburg Talks Patriotism, Practices Opportunism

Zuckerburg Talks Patriotism, Practices Opportunism

“Now it’s official: Despite happy talk about doing what’s best for America, Facebook billionaire Mark Zuckerberg and the cadre of other Silicon Valley titans helping with his new lobbying organization FWD.us are looking out for their own self-interest, just like every previous political action committee or billionaires’ club,” says Thomas Elias at the Daily Californian.

“Zuckerberg tried to explain himself the other day in the Washington Post, writing that U.S. immigration policy today is ‘unfit for today’s world … To lead the world in this new economy, we need the most talented and hardest-working people. We need to train and attract the best.'”

“What that means is that Zuckerberg and allies from companies like Google, Netflix, Microsoft, Yahoo, Yelp and LinkedIn, along with some of the venture capitalists who bankroll many Silicon Valley high-tech start-ups, want to bring in more workers on H-1B visas.”

Amnesty Drive Bogged Down?

“Eventually, the participants in every tough legislative process have to somehow answer the same question: Why not just wait and do this later? Immigration reform is beginning to have to face the ‘later’ question. In a Weekly Standard editorial entitled ‘Kill The Bill,’ Bill Kristol and Rich Lowry make the argument sharply: ‘If Republicans take the Senate and hold the House in 2014, they will be in a much better position to pass a sensible immigration bill.’ The odds that Republicans would go anywhere near immigration reform in 2015 after they painfully, anxiously killed it in 2013 are vanishingly low,” says liberal blogger Ezra Klein at the Washington Post.

State Dept. Official Removed in Sex For Visas Scandal

“A State Department officer has been accused of selling visas for sex and money in what may have been a massive human trafficking operation, The Daily Caller has learned,” the Daily Caller reported.

“The State Department acknowledged last week that one of its officials is the target of a probe over ‘allegations of improprieties relating to a Consular Officer formerly assigned to Georgetown, Guyana’ without providing further details. Local media are also claiming the official, who was recently withdrawn from normal duties pending completion of an official investigation, associated with drug lords as part of his visa scam.”

Obama Deportation Numbers Still Don’t Add Up

“The Obama administration is deporting fewer people than it did in 2011 or 2012, but has ousted more than 110,000 illegal immigrants this year who didn’t have criminal records, according to statistics that call into question the Obama administration’s public statements about its deportation policies. Continued deportation of rank-and-file illegal immigrants is fueling outrage by advocacy groups that want the Obama administration to halt most deportations while Congress hashes out an immigration bill,” the Washington Times reports.

“TRAC, which looks at federal filings in immigration courts, says 14.7 percent of removal cases filed by the administration this year have alleged criminal violations. That figure has dropped steadily from 16.6 percent in 2010. Although the drop isn’t steep, the trend suggests that the administration is finding it increasingly difficult to meet its goal of deporting 400,000 people a year while focusing chiefly on the most dangerous immigrants.”