Sessions slams Zuckerberg: ‘People aren’t commodities, they’re human beings’

—

March 17, 2015

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdQCdxcHwLQ
(Video above: Senator Jeff Sessions addresses the Senate Judiciary Committee)

WASHINGTON — Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) made a statement at the Senate Judiciary Committee meeting Tuesday saying individuals and companies engaged in the immigration policy debate should stop treating humans like commodities.

“People aren’t commodities. We compare labor to commodities, but they’re not commodities. They’re human beings. They have families. They have hopes and dreams. They want stability in their life.”

Sessions, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on immigration, refugees, and border security went on to criticize California utilities giant Southern California Edison for laying off hundreds of American workers in favor of immigrant workers in the country with H-1B visas to save money.

“Congress represents the people of the United States. And yes, bringing in talent is a good thing, but we have no obligation to yield to the lusts of big businesses,” he said. “They all want more profits and lower pay for workers, that’s just what they do.”

The Senator also took Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg to task for his support of increasing these visas instead of working to provide more jobs to those already in the country. ”

“Mr. Zuckerberg is worth $27 billion, I guess he is 27 years old, I’m not sure,” Sessions joked. “So he wants more foreign workers. I would like to think he might want to pay his employees more and maybe not have quite so many billions, if he’d like to be helpful, and maybe he could get more local workers.”

Check out Sen. Sessions’ entire statement in the video above.