Donald Trump insisted at Wednesday's Republican presidential debate that he had never criticized Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Sen. Marco Rubio for their immigration policies, but a policy paper on his own website says their immigration proposals "would decimate women and minorities."
Trump got into it with debate moderator Becky Quick when Quick asked Trump about his statement that Zuckerberg is Rubio's personal senator because of their support for H1B immigration visas for tech companies.
"You have been very critical of Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook who has wanted to increase the number of these H1Bs," she said.
"I was not at all critical of him. I was not at all," Trump responded.
Quick, confused by his answer, asked him where she had read it then.
"I never said that, I never said that," Trump continued.
It turns out that the articles Quick had read were citing Trump's immigration policy paper ... on DonaldTrump.com.
.@BeckyQuick was citing Trump's immigration paper where he called Rubio Zuckerberg's senator https://t.co/ltkAvHs59X
In the bipartisan 2013 Senate immigration bill that Rubio supported but has largely distanced himself from since, the Florida senator supported increasing the annual H-1B visa cap from 65,000 to up to 195,000 depending on market conditions and demand.
In a 2013 Washington Post op-ed, Zuckerberg, who started FWD.us to push for immigration legislation from the tech community, asked why the country kicks out the more than 40% of math and science graduate students who are not U.S. citizens after educating them.
"Why do we offer so few H-1B visas for talented specialists that the supply runs out within days of becoming available each year, even though we know each of these jobs will create two or three more American jobs in return?" he wrote.
Quick revisited the question later on in the debate, informing Trump that the comment was from his website.
"As far as Mark is concerned, as far as the visas are concerned, if we need people, it’s fine," Trump said. "They have to come into this country legally. We have a country of borders. We have a country of laws. We have to obey the laws. It's fine if they come in, but they have to come in legally."
After the debate FWD.us President Todd Schulte cited Trump's immigration plan, saying "It is astounding that some in a party that espouses smaller government wants one big enough to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants and millions of their U.S. citizen family members.”