Facebook founder calls Trump’s decision to end program ‘one of the most troubling things I’ve seen in a long time’ during conversation at his home

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Mark Zuckerberg has doubled down on his criticism of Donald Trump’s decision to rescind Daca with a 45-minute live broadcast on Facebook in which he interviewed three Dreamers – undocumented immigrants brought to the US as children.

“To offer the American dream to people,” Zuckerberg said, from his home in Palo Alto, “and then take it away and punish them for trusting the government is one of the most troubling things I’ve seen in a long time in our country.”

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“There is lots of debate you can have over immigration, but what you should do with Dreamers, and the compassion you should be showing – I think there is no question.”

Zuckerberg was referring to the administration’s ending of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) program, which allowed 800,000 young people to attend college, get driver’s licenses, and work.

The tech industry has been vocal about its support of Daca. On Friday Zuckerberg joined Meg Whitman of Hewlett-Packard, Jack Dorsey of Twitter, Tim Cook of Apple and other business leaders in sending an open letter to Trump urging him not to kill off Daca. On Tuesday, Microsoft vowed it would go to court to protects its Dreamers from deportation.

During the broadcast, Zuckerberg addressed a number of common misperceptions about the program with Maria Praeli and Leezia Dhalla, Dreamers who work at his pro-immigration advocacy group, FWD.us, and Tomas Evangelista, the co-founder of the community group California Dreamers.

The first was that Dreamers enter the country by deceit. In reality, they often lose their documentation because of clerical error, as happened with Dhalla. Her parents came into the US from Canada on a visa in 1996 and lost their immigration status because their lawyer filed some paperwork late.

“I feel American in every single way,” Dhalla said.

“I’m American,” Praeli said. “I feel American, but you are constantly told this country might not choose to accept you.”

“You are American,” Zuckerberg said. “Our country is better for having you here, not because of the different diversity and experience you bring but because you all work super hard. That’s as American as it gets.”

Zuckerberg also addressed the fact that Dreamers don’t have a legal pathway for citizenship, citing comments he had seen on his Facebook posts.

“Most people don’t get that there’s currently no legal way for someone who is undocumented in the country to apply for citizenship,” he said.

“All we’re asking for is a chance,” said Evangelista. “We’re not saying ‘give this to us now’. We’re asking to give us an opportunity to even start.”

Praeli became emotional when she described coming to the US from Peru when she was five to seek medical treatment for her sister, who had been hit by a car. Life was tense for her family until Obama announced the Daca program. “I knew my life was about to change. Since then, the lives of 800,000 people have been changed,” she said.

When her grandmother died in 2013, Praeli’s mother couldn’t fly back to Peru to attend the funeral because she wouldn’t have been allowed back into the US.

“She had to watch her mother’s funeral through an iPad because of how broken the country’s immigration system is,” Praeli said.

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Evangelista pointed out that Dreamers pay money to have a Daca permit so they can work and contribute “billions” in taxes back into the economy.

“All those programs we support – Medicaid, Medicare, social security – but we can’t pull from them ourselves as we are not eligible.”

Zuckerberg ended the broadcast by calling on people to push for a new bill that would give Dreamers a path to citizenship, and said business leaders could make such a bill its priority over other proposed legislation such as tax reform – something Microsoft’s president, Brad Smith, pledged to do on Tuesday.

“Bills don’t just come up,” Zuckerberg said. “People need to push on this.”