'... that his great-grandparents were immigrants and that his in-laws were refugees'.

[milan2003_07]

The sentence is from the New York Times (recent issue, on-line):

Big Tech’s Hotbeds of Employee Activism Quiet After Trump’s Victory

Eight years ago, workers loudly protested White House policies. This time around, the companies are trying to keep a lid on activism.

www.nytimes.com

"Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, posted that his great-grandparents were immigrants and that his in-laws were refugees"

I was taught by my teachers of English that we need to use the sequence of tenses in reported speech. Mark Zuckerberg posts contains the information that his great-grandparents and in-laws were immigrants. Shouldn't the sentence be:

"Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, posted that his great-grandparents had been immigrants and that his in-laws had been refugees"?

 

[emsr2d2]

The following sentences sentence is from The New York Times (recent online issue on-line):

Big Tech’s Hotbeds of Employee Activism Quiet After Trump’s Victory

Eight years ago, workers loudly protested White House policies. This time around, the companies are trying to keep a lid on activism.

www.nytimes.com

"Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, posted that his great-grandparents were immigrants and that his in-laws were refugees."

I was taught by my teachers of English that we need to use the a specific sequence of tenses in reported speech. Mark Zuckerberg's posts contains contain the information that his great-grandparents and in-laws were immigrants. Shouldn't the sentence be as follows?

"Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, posted that his great-grandparents had been immigrants and that his in-laws had been refugees."

No. The use of the past simple is correct.

Note my corrections above.

 

[jutfrank]

Not only is there no need for the past perfect here but I'd argue that using it could be a mistake.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, posted that his great-grandparents had been immigrants and that his in-laws had been refugees.

With no additional context, the use of the past perfect could falsely lead one to believe that there was an unmentioned third point in time before which his ancestors had been immigrants/refugees.

 

[Rover_KE]

Only consider using the past perfect, @milan2003_07, when you have a good reason to.