Mark Zuckerberg is using his position as the leader of Facebook to push back against President Donald Trump’s decision to end a government program that protects young undocumented immigrants from deportation.
Mark Zuckerberg answered questions about Dreamers and immigration on Facebook Live
Zuckerberg went live from his home to “take questions” about DACA.
Justin Sullivan / Getty
Zuckerberg, who has more than 96 million followers on Facebook, said that he’ll go live from his home on Wednesday to “take questions” about DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that currently protects the children of undocumented immigrants from deportation.
When Trump announced on Tuesday that he planned to end the program in six months, Zuckerberg called it a “sad day for our country.” He also responded to a bunch of Facebook comments on his page on Tuesday and over the weekend about Dreamers and DACA.
Immigration reform, and Dreamers in particular, have always been very important topics to Zuckerberg. He and his wife Priscilla Chan have funded hundreds of college scholarships for undocumented students, and he co-founded FWD.us, an organization focused on immigration reform.
During his Harvard commencement address back in May, Zuckerberg told the story of an undocumented student he helps mentor, and how the student didn’t know if he would get to go to college. “It says something about our situation today that I can’t even say his name because I don’t want to put him at risk,” an emotional Zuckerberg said at the time.
But Zuckerberg, who has become increasingly vocal in the past year about political issues like immigration and global warming, is using his own platform more and more to promote issues he cares about. It’s one of the reasons many believe he may be preparing for a political campaign of some sort, and considering that the CEO has nearly 100 million followers (and controls Facebook’s almighty algorithm), it’s worth looking closely at how he’s using his position at Facebook to voice his concerns.
Despite Zuckerberg’s posts, Facebook has not yet made it clear what it plans to do, if anything, to fight Trump on a legal front or assist affected employees. Microsoft, for example, promised on Tuesday to pay for affected employees’ legal counsel.
You can watch the live Q&A at Zuckerberg’s Facebook Page below.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
