Mark Zuckerberg Hosts ‘Hackathon’ for Undocumented Immigrants

The Facebook CEO holds a marathon programming session to push Congress to pass immigration reform

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Correction appended

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg hosted a marathon programming session Wednesday with young undocumented immigrants, in his latest effort to prod Congress into pass immigration reform.

Zuckerberg brought 20 young immigrants, who came to the U.S. illegally, to Silicon Valley for a “DREAMer Hackathon” at the headquarters of LinkedIn. With help from other technology heavyweights like LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and Dropbox co-founder Drew Houston, the young coders planned to build new technology platforms during a 24-hour coding session, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Zuckerberg’s lobbying group, Fwd.us, which advocates for immigration reform, pledged to get the young coders’ projects up running. The group wants to change U.S. immigration policy to grant more visas for workers with skills in science, math and technology.

[Los Angeles Times]

Correction: A previous version of this article misstated where the Hackathon took place. It was at LinkedIn’s headquarters, not Facebook’s headquarters.