Google Speaks Out Against Trump’s Immigration Orders
Google CEO Sundar Pichai has expressed his disapproval of U.S. president Donald Trump’s recent action against immigrants and refugees. Like most tech leaders, Sundar, an immigrant himself, protested Trump’s decision to temporarily bar immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries. Sundar Pichai wrote a note to his employees on Friday regarding the matter.
“It’s painful to see the personal cost of this executive order on our colleagues. We’ve always made our view on immigration issues known publicly and will continue to do so.”
Although google has refrained from commenting, it has reported that some Google employees who were outside of the United States are being rushed back to the country to prevent any possible hassle. In his memo, Sundar specifically mentions the case of one employee who had to rush back to the United States before the orders were signed.
Apparently Sundar isn’t the only one in Google who disapproves of Trump’s orders. Sergey Brin, the co-founder of Google and current president of Alphabet, was spotted in San Francisco protesting U.S. president Donald Trump’s immigration action on Saturday night. Verge reportedly tried to get a comment from Sergey regarding his protest, but the Google co-founder said that he was attending the protest “in a personal capacity” and wouldn’t be making any comments at the time.
Forbes magazine’s Ryan Mac also caught Brin while he was protesting. Brin reportedly opened up more to Mac, telling him that he was protesting Trump’s decision because he considers himself to be a refugee too.
“I’m here because I’m a refugee.”
Google cofounder Sergey Brin at SFO protest: "I'm here because I'm a refugee." (Photo from Matt Kang/Forbes) pic.twitter.com/GwhsSwDPLT
— Ryan Mac ? (@RMac18) January 29, 2017
Brin’s family emigrated from the Soviet Union to the United States in 1979 after repeatedly facing discrimination from the Communist Party for being Jewish.
Google has expressed concerns over how President Trump’s orders could affect its employees. A Google spokeswoman made a statement regarding the matter.
“We’re concerned about the impact of this order and any proposals that could impose restrictions on Googlers and their families, or that create barriers to bringing great talent to the U.S. We’ll continue to make our views on these issues known to leaders in Washington and elsewhere.”
Trump’s decision has faced a lot of backlash from leaders of the tech industry, with the likes of Apple CEO Tim Cook, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Lyft CEO Logan Green, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, and Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, among others, expressing their disapproval of President Trump’s Refugee Ban and Immigration Restriction. Ava Benach, a partner at Benach Collopy LLP, a law firm that specializes in immigration, said that the firm had advised all of its clients from the seven countries who have green cards or any type of H-1B visa not to travel outside the U.S for a while, also pointing out that the order would take effect immediately.
“No one is really sure whether a green card holder from these seven countries can return to the U.S. now. It’s fairly clear that an H-1B visa holder can’t. If anyone in these situations has the misfortune to have gone abroad recently, it’s a treacherous moment, possibly for green card holders too.”
Trump signed the controversial decision on Friday, January 27. He says that the decision is “a measure to keep radical Islamic terrorists out of America,” explicitly specifying, “We don’t want them here.” He further justified his decision by pointing out the following:
“We don’t want to admit the very threats our soldiers are fighting overseas. We only want to admit those that support our country and love, deeply, our people.”
I promise that our administration will ALWAYS have your back. We will ALWAYS be with you! pic.twitter.com/D0aOWhOH4X
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 27, 2017
[Featured Image by Ramin Talaie/Getty Images]
