Immigration Reform 2016: Obama Executive Action Supreme Court Case Backed By Mark Zuckerberg

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other influential tech leaders filed a brief with the Supreme Court Tuesday supporting President Barack Obama’s executive action to give new rights to undocumented immigrants. The brief was submitted by the lobbying group Fwd.us, which was founded by Zuckerberg and others to champion immigration reform, the Hill reported.

The brief says Obama’s 2014 executive actions on immigration, which aim to circumvent Republican resistance in Congress, would increase gross domestic product by hundreds of billions of dollars over a decade if approved by the Supreme Court. “Instead of inviting the economic contributions of immigrants, our immigration enforcement policies have often inhibited the productivity of U.S. companies and made it harder for them to compete in the global marketplace,” the brief reads. Contributors to Fwd.us include tech giants like Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Netflix CEO Reed Hastings.

The Supreme Court is expected to hear in April a Republican-led challenge to Obama's move to protect 5 million immigrants from deportation. The program would have helped the parents of children in the country legally.

"The president moved forward with these programs only after Congress repeatedly failed to pass comprehensive immigration reform legislation that, among other things, would have provided a path to citizenship for much of the undocumented population," the Council on Foreign Relations explained in a brief published Tuesday. "But many critics warn that if the Supreme Court allows the deferred action programs to stand, there would be little to prevent future presidents from circumventing Congress on other controversial issues."

The November 2014 executive action was blocked shortly after it was announced by a suit filed by Texas and 25 other Republican-led states. The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments in the United States v. Texas case starting on April 18, with a ruling expected in June.