Zuckerberg’s FWD.us to hold pro-immigration roundtable with Hatch

{mosads}The event is one of a series of roundtables that FWD.us has hosted this summer to keep up the momentum behind the push for immigration reform in Congress. Lawmakers like Reps. Mike Honda (D-Calif.) and Bill Foster (D-Ill.) have participated in previous roundtable events hosted by the political advocacy group, which counts top Silicon Valley tech executives like Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman as donors.

Green, who co-founded NationBuilder and launched the charity software platform Causes, will also participate in the event. It will be held at the headquarters of property management software company Property Solutions in Lehi, Utah.

Hatch has been a vocal Republican supporter of immigration reform in the Senate, as well as an ally of the tech industry in its push for more high-skilled visas and green cards for foreign workers and graduates of U.S. universities. With Hatch’s support, the Gang of Eight’s sweeping immigration bill was able to secure enough votes to clear the Senate Judiciary Committee and win approval from the full Senate.

The Utah Republican had proposed a set of tech industry-backed amendments to the immigration bill that rolled back requirements that tech companies would have had to meet to secure H-1B visas for highly-skilled foreign workers. Hatch’s amendments were wrapped into the bill passed by the Senate.

FWD.us has unleashed an all-out push for comprehensive immigration reform while lawmakers are back in their home districts for their August recess. Zuckerberg gave opening remarks at the premiere of journalist Jose Antonio Vargas’ documentary “Documented” in San Francisco earlier this month, which was hosted by Vargas’s immigrant rights group, Define American, and FWD.us.

Last week the group also released a pair of TV ads that aim to rally the public’s support for immigration legislation.

On cable outlets and 13 major TV broadcast markets across the country, FWD.us will run an ad that tells the story of an immigrant who wants to serve in the military but cannot because he came to the United States illegally as a child with his family. The group also funded an ad that defended Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) support of immigration reform, which will run over the next couple of weeks on broadcast and cable TV in Milwaukee.