(Wall Street Journal)- Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg on Friday publicly opposed two executive orders signed by President Donald Trump aiming to curtail immigration and bolster border security, contrasting with the neutral stance the tech executive has taken since the election.
“Like many of you, I’m concerned about the impact of the recent executive orders signed by President Trump,” Mr. Zuckerberg wrote on his Facebook page. “We need to keep this country safe, but we should do that by focusing on people who actually pose a threat.”
The carefully worded post is Mr. Zuckerberg’s first position against the new administration. He and Mr. Trump publicly clashed during the campaign. In August 2015, Mr. Trump singled out Mr. Zuckerberg as an opponent to the candidate’s immigration plan, designed to make hiring foreigners less attractive to U.S. employers.
Silicon Valley is heavily dependent on foreign workers. At an industry summit with Mr. Trump last month, several executives impressed upon the then-president-elect the importance of highly skilled immigration for the tech sector. (Mr. Zuckerberg was notably absent from the meeting; his deputy, Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, represented Facebook.) Mr. Zuckerberg helped create Fwd.us, a lobbying group focused on immigration reform founded in 2013.
But in his post, Mr. Zuckerberg emphasized his personal ties to immigration. He said that the U.S. should keep its doors open to refugees, noting that the parents of his wife, Priscilla Chan, were refugees from China and Vietnam. Mr. Zuckerberg said his great grandparents hailed from Germany, Austria and Poland.
Still, Mr. Zuckerberg added that he was happy that Mr. Trump said he would “work something out” for those who came to the U.S. illegally as children and are currently protected by a program introduced in 2012.
“I hope the President and his team keep these protections in place,” Mr. Zuckerberg wrote, adding that over the next few weeks, he would work with Fwd.us, the lobbying group, to “find ways we can help.”
Mr. Zuckerberg added: “I’m also glad the President believes our country should continue to benefit from ‘people of great talent coming into the country.’”
Facebook, and Mr. Zuckerberg, are often in a delicate place when it comes to politics.
Neither Mr. Zuckerberg nor Ms. Sandberg, the author of “Lean In” and an advocate for women’s rights, posted about Saturday’s Women’s March on Washington, which was largely organized through Facebook groups. A spokeswoman for Ms. Sandberg said she couldn’t attend “for personal reasons. She wishes she could have been there.”
On Thursday, Ms. Sandberg—who publicly backed Hillary Clinton’s candidacy—wrote a post against another one of Mr. Trump’s executive orders, a memorandum blocking federal funding for NGOs overseas that perform abortions or provide abortion-related services. Her post didn’t mention Mr. Trump by name.
Facebook was criticized for allowing fake news, which often denigrated Mrs. Clinton, to flourish on the platform in the months before the presidential election. Last spring, conservatives raised concerns about liberal bias in how Facebook selected headlines for its “trending topics” feature.
Internally, employees have railed against Facebook’s ties to billionaire investor Peter Thiel, a prominent adviser to Mr. Trump, who sits on the social network’s board of directors.
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