Y Combinator President Sam Altman Speaks Out Against Trump’s Immigration Orders

Y Combinator President Sam Altman has denounced U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent action against immigrants and refugees. Altman attended the Airport protest in San Francisco on Saturday night, where he briefly spoke with Forbes magazine’s Ryan Mac about his dissatisfaction at President Trump’s orders.

“I hope this will be one of the defining moments where people came together against this administration. This is an unacceptable action and we need to make our voices heard.”

Sam Altman has urged all Tech CEOs to protest Trump’s action. [Image by Sean Gallup/Getty Images]Earlier in the weekend, Sam Altman had written a blog post regarding the same matter titled “Time to Take a Stand.”

“It is time for tech companies to start speaking up about some of the actions taken by President Trump’s administration.”

In his blog post, Altman says that Trump’s controversial order, titled “Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States,” is tantamount to a Muslim ban and requires objection. Altman says that even though he is for safety, rules targeting a specific religious group “is the wrong solution.” He calls this action a step further towards “a further reduction in rights.”

“The precedent of invalidating already-issued visas and green cards should be extremely troubling for immigrants of any country or for anyone who thinks their contributions to the US are important. This is not just a Muslim ban. This is a breach of America’s contract with all the immigrants in the nation.”

Altman further added that he believed the Trump administration had already shown that they weren’t very impressed by the first amendment and that they have clear intentions of taking further anti-immigration actions. He urged everyone to stand up against them, arguing that if they do not act against the Trump administration, it will “continue to take away our rights.”

Altman however urged his readers not to demonize Trump voters in the process, arguing that many of those who voted for President Trump voted for reasons other than banning Muslims from the United States. Sam said that it would be wrong to isolate them, since their support will eventually be adamant in resisting against actions such as these. It is here that Altman urges all tech CEOs to put their business aside and stand up for the greater good.

“The tech community is powerful. Large tech companies in particular have enormous power and are held in high regard. We need to hear from the CEOs clearly and unequivocally. Although there is some business risk in doing so, there is strength in numbers—if everyone does it early this coming week, we will all make each other stronger.”

Trump’s decision faced severe backlashes, particularly from leaders of the tech industry such as Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Lyft CEO Logan Green, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick and Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, among others. Google co-founder and Alphabet President Sergey Brin was also spotted protesting against the decision at San Francisco Airport on Saturday night. He reportedly told Forbes magazine’s Ryan Mac that he was there because he “was a refugee” too.

President Trump signed the controversial orders indefinitely barring all Syrian Refugees, and putting a 120-day bar on refugees from Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen, on Friday, January 27. Further more no Visa would be issued to the citizens of these countries for the next 30 days until, as the President puts it, “sufficient vetting” is guaranteed. President Trump has justified his ban 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

Trump also signed another order, pushing the “re-building” of the military.

“As we prepare our budget request for Congress, our military strength will be questioned by no one and neither will our dedication to peace. And we do want peace.”

[Featured Image by Drew Angerer/Getty Images]