97 tech companies — including Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, and Uber — have signed an amicus brief in opposition to Donald Trump's recent executive order on immigration. The legal brief highlights the role played by immigrants on America's economy, stating that the travel ban will negatively impact businesses in the country:
Immigrants make many of the Nation's greatest discoveries, and create some of the country's most innovative and iconic companies. America has long recognized the importance of protecting ourselves against those who would do us harm. But it has done so while maintaining our fundamental commitment to welcoming immigrants—through increased background checks and other controls on people seeking to enter our country.The tremendous impact of immigrants on America—and on American business—is not happenstance. People who choose to leave everything that is familiar and journey to an unknown land to make a new life necessarily are endowed with drive, creativity, determination—and just plain guts. The energy they bring to America is a key reason why the American economy has been the greatest engine of prosperity and innovation in history.The Executive Order abandons those principles—and inflicts significant harm on American business, innovation, and growth as a result. The Order makes it more difficult and expensive for U.S. companies to recruit, hire, and retain some of the world's best employees. It disrupts ongoing business operations. And it threatens companies' ability to attract talent, business, and investment to the United States.
Trump's travel ban drew widespread criticism from several quarters, with Washington state mounting the fiercest opposition. The state's attorney general called the order "unlawful and unconstitutional", stating that it would "cause irreparable harm" to the entire state. A federal judge in Seattle was able to temporarirly block the immigration ban, and the government's request to have it reinstated was denied earlier today.
The tech sector also voiced strong opposition of the executive order, calling it "unconstitutional." Last week saw protests at several prominent tech companies, with several donating huge sums of money to human rights organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco — where the legal brief was filed — is expected to make its decision shortly. Here's the full list of companies that are fighting the executive order:
- AdRoll
- Aeris Communications
- Airbnb
- AltSchool
- Ancestry.com
- Appboy
- Apple
- AppNexus
- Asana
- Atlassian
- Autodesk
- Automattic
- Box
- Brightcove
- Brit + Co
- CareZone
- Castlight Health
- Checkr
- Chobani
- Citrix Systems
- Cloudera
- Cloudflare
- Copia Institute
- DocuSign
- DoorDash
- Dropbox
- Dynatrace
- eBay
- Engine Advocacy
- Etsy
- Fastly
- Foursquare
- Fuze
- General Assembly
- GitHub
- Glassdoor
- GoPro
- Harmonic
- Hipmunk
- Indigogo
- Intel
- JAND d/b/a Warby Parker
- Kargo
- Kickstarter
- KIND
- Knotel
- Levi Strauss & Co.
- Lithium Technologies
- Lyft
- Mapbox
- Maplebear d/b/a Instacart
- Marin Software
- Medallia
- Medium
- Meetup
- Microsoft
- Motivate International
- Mozilla
- Netflix
- Netgear
- NewsCred
- Patreon
- PayPal
- Quora
- Rocket Fuel
- SaaStr
- Salesforce
- Scopely
- Shutterstock
- Snap
- Spokeo
- Spotify
- Square
- Squarespace
- Strava
- Stripe
- SurveyMonkey
- TaskRabbit
- Tech:NYC
- Thumbtack
- Turn
- Twilio
- Turn
- Uber
- Via
- Wikimedia Foundation
- Workday
- Y Combinator
- Yelp
- Zynga
