Mark Zuckerberg's questionable ads for GOP immigration reform plan (FWD US, ACD, Facebook)

Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook is behind a $750,000 ad buy in support of the GOP "Standards for Immigration Reform". The ads are from "Americans for a Conservative Direction" ("ACD"), the conservative front group for Zuckerberg's pro-comprehensive immigration reform group FWD US.

The TV and radio ads for their campaign are below, and if you compare what the ads say to what the GOP plan says, you'll see some interesting differences. When compared to the actual GOP plan (see the link above), the ads are deceptive: what they say about the GOP plan doesn't match up with the GOP plan itself. But, Zuckerberg might know more about the GOP's actual plans than I do: after all, he's got a lot of potential campaign donations to spread around and probably has easy access to politicians.

Like the GOP plan, ACD's ads start with a big lie: system is broken. The ads say the GOP plan will "put more agents on the border" and "give them better equipment and technology". The GOP plan says nothing like that, only that they want to secure the border.

The ACD radio ad mentions eVerify by name, something the actual GOP plan doesn't do.

The ACD ads claim "anyone in America illegally undergoes a criminal background check. If they have a criminal past, they should be deported".

Compare that to the much weaker, actual GOP plan:

Rather, these persons could live legally and without fear in the U.S., but only if they were willing to... pass rigorous background checks... Criminal aliens... will not be eligible for this program.

The GOP plan as written sounds a lot more voluntary than the ACD version, doesn't it? The ACD version almost sounds like DHS agents will be going door to door. The GOP plan says nothing about deporting those who aren't eligible.

And, of course, the ACD ads make it all sound so simple, don't they? Everything will happen as planned in three discrete steps one after the other. The ads are even called "Step by Step".

What could go wrong? Well, lots of things. Depending on the triggers, millions could be legalized without having to learn English first or pass a criminal background check. Or, the background checks could just be cursory and subject to massive fraud (it would take five to ten years to do FBI-quality background checks on 10 million people).

Want to do something about this? Since commenting is disabled on the videos that's not an option. But what you can do is look up those on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media sites and make the points above to them. If a leading tech figure promotes the ads, work to either turn or discredit them to their supporters.

Another thing you can do is ask FWD US officials and supporters these questions. The president of FWD US is on Twitter and doesn't have many followers: @JoeKGreen. Likewise with their executive director: @TheToddSchulte. Ask them one of those questions per day for the next ten days, or look up those they chat with and discuss with them how FWD US isn't credible.

Here's the TV ad, with the radio spot after that: