Mark Zuckerberg, the young CEO of Facebook is launching a project designed to facilitate efforts in bringing immigration reform to reality by 2017. The group is called, FWD,us. Some of the things the group will be funding is TV ads, advertising campaigns, and polling to mention a few. It is estimated that Zuckerberg’s contribution to this effort could total 10 million dollars. This, on the heels of the Zuckerberg’s’ announcement that they plan to dedicate the bulk of their 45 billion dollars net worth to philanthropic causes.

FWD.us was launched in 2013 along with Bill Gates and others to counteract the Republican anti-immigrant platform. The goal is to coordinate the tech community to focus efforts towards comprehensive immigration reform without the hostile approached taken by the GOP presidential candidates.

The folks at FWD.us believe the time is right to educate the public and the politicians about the benefits of immigration reform with the hope that a new president will have enough congressional support to push through meaningful legislation in 2017. This means hitting the GOP stronghold states hard.

The polling by FWD.us shows that most Americans do not favor mass deportation of the millions of undocumented immigrants currently living in the United States, rather they favor a comprehensive approach that will address the undocumented immigrants and provide a path to legalization for most of them. Of course, the high tech community is particularly interested in immigration reform because they believe the United States is losing valuable brain power by limiting visas.

While 2012 showed a marked increase in Hispanic voters, groups like FWD.us believe that 2016 will be 2012 on steroids. Another reason for targeting 2017 for immigration reform.