Virtual Immigration Marchers Head to Washington

Feb. 26, 2013— -- The tech industry wants an expansion of visas for workers in their field, and they're doing what they do best to make that happen: sitting at a desk in an ultramodern office setting and using a laptop to get things done.

A coalition of business and tech leaders that includes New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and AOL co-founder Steve Case is backing the "March for Innovation," a virtual march on Washington that will likely take place sometime later this spring. The best part of the march? You can do it from where you're sitting right now. No cold weather, no having to hold up a sign, no eye contact. Just you and your Wi-Fi. The way it should be.

The marchers will sign up now and then mobilize on a yet undisclosed date, which will be pegged to the progress on immigration reform in Congress. That will mean tweets, Facebooking, possibly Instagramming, maybe Vining, probably not MySpacing and a little bit of Craigslisting when all else fails.

The goal is to make sure that immigration reform includes "provisions to boost innovation and entrepreneurship," which means some type of visa expansion for workers in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), as well as some sort of way to help foreign entrepreneurs create startups.

There will be real-life activism in the coming weeks, too. A big immigration reform rally is planned for the Capitol on April 10, and there's a bus tour kicking off in Chicago today that will reach 500 families, travel 20,000 miles, visit more than 100 congressional offices and 38 senator offices (that's 20,638 things in total). The main reason: calling for a path to citizenship for the country's 11 million undocumented immigrants.