Google Co-founder Sergey Brin Spotted At San Francisco Protest Over Trump’s Immigration Action
Sergey Brin, the co-founder of Google and current president of Alphabet, has been spotted in San Francisco protesting U.S. President Donald Trump’s immigration action. Brin, whose parents emigrated from Russia when he was 5, was spotted at the San Francisco International Airport on Saturday night protesting Trump’s decision. President Trump signed an executive order temporarily banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries on Friday, January 27. Organizations, groups and individuals from across the globe have been protesting the President’s decision.
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 after repeatedly facing a lot of discrimination from the Communist Party for being Jewish. Brin’s father has said that he was forced to abandon his plans of becoming an astronomer before entering college because Jewish people weren’t allowed to study physics in the prestigious Moscow State University and were barred from upper professional ranks. Brin’s family moved to the United States in 1979 when he was 5-years-old.
And it seems Google’s current CEO, Sundar Pichai, isn’t that happy about President Trump’s order as well. Pichai, himself an immigrant from India, wrote in a statement in a company-wide email, that he was upset about the decision.
“We’re upset about the impact of this order. We’ve always made our views on immigration issues known publicly and will continue to do so.”
Trump’s decision has faced a lot of backlash from leaders of the tech industry. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Lyft CEO Logan Green, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick and Netflix CEO Reed Hastings are only a few among those who have expressed their dissatisfaction over President Trump’s immigration and refugee ban. Google even made an official statement regarding the matter. A spokeswoman for the search engine giant said:
“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 controversial decision puts a temporary bar on refugees and Immigrants from Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. Furthermore no visa will be issued to citizens of these seven countries for the next 30 days, so that, in the words of the president “sufficient vetting can be insured.” He justified his decision by saying:
“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
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.”
[Featured Image by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images]
