Sen. Jeff Sessions on Thursday challenged Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg to hire more Americans instead of using his deep-pocketed advocacy group to lobby the Obama administration for huge increases in the number of guest-worker visas for foreign workers.
"I read in the news that Facebook, his company, is now worth more than $200 billion," the Alabama Republican, long a staunch opponent of immigration reform, said on the Senate floor. "Is that not enough money to hire American workers for a change?
"Your company now employs roughly 7,000 people," Sessions continued. "Let's say you want to expand your workforce 10 percent, or hire another 700 workers. Are you claiming you can't find 700 Americans who would take these jobs if you paid a good wage and decent benefits?
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"The basic social contract is that citizens agree to follow the law, pay their taxes, devote their love and loyalty to their country — and in exchange, the nation commits to preserve and protect and serve their interests, safeguard their freedom, and return to them in kind their first allegiance and loyalty."
Sessions' full Senate floor speech was published in
The National Review.
Zuckerberg's group, FWD.us, is among the many high-technology groups pushing the Obama administration to increase the number of visas as part of the president's planned executive actions on immigration.
The White House told Hispanic and other pro-immigration groups on Thursday that he would announce his orders by the end of the year.
Facebook, the world's largest social networking company, turned 10 years old in February. Based in Menlo Park, Calif., the company has a market capitalization of more than $201.31 billion, according to Thursday's closing price on the Nasdaq stock market.
Zuckerberg, 30, has a net worth of $16.1 billion,
Forbes magazine reported recently. In March, it was $13.3 billion.
In his speech, Sessions railed against Silicon Valley claims that more guest-worker visas are needed because the United States lacks sufficient numbers of highly-skilled tech workers.
"The masters of the universe are very fond of open borders, as long as these open borders don’t extend to their gated compounds and fenced-off estates," Sessions said.
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"Let me just say one more thing," he later added. "Facebook has 7,000 workers. Microsoft just laid off 18,000.
"Why doesn’t Mr. Zuckerberg call his friend Mr. [Bill] Gates and say: 'Look, I have to hire a few hundred people; do you have any résumés you can send over here?'" Sessions said. "Maybe I will not have to take somebody from a foreign country for a job an unemployed U.S. citizen might take."
Gates, 58, the Microsoft Corp. founder whose $76 billion net worth places him at the top of the Forbes list as the world's richest man, is an
FWD.us "supporter," according to the group's website.
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