Facebook's Zuckerberg, wife donate $5 million to undocumented immigrants scholarship fund

MENLO PARK, Calif., June 18 (UPI) -- The man behind Facebook, billionaire Mark Zuckerberg, donated $5 million to a scholarship fund to help undocumented immigrants in the U.S. attend college.

Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, gave the money to TheDream.us, providing for more than 400 young immigrants in the San Francisco Bay area in the next five years.

"America was founded as a nation of immigrants. We ought to welcome smart and hardworking young people from every nation and to help everyone in our society achieve their full potential," Zuckerberg said on his Facebook page. "If we help more young immigrants climb the ladder to new opportunities, then our country will make greater progress."

TheDream.us, which was created in 2013, is a national scholarship program founded by Donald Graham, a former Washington Post publisher; Henry Munoz, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee; and activist Gaby Pacheco.

The financial gift is far from Zuckerberg's first. Earlier this year, the couple donated $75 million to San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center to complete the hospital's trauma center. Zuckerberg has long supported immigration rights.