Immigration debate is a defining moment for Amazon, Microsoft and T-Mobile
The controversy surrounding the Trump administration’s separation and detention of migrant families has presented a defining moment for Seattle-area technology companies.
Among them, Amazon and Microsoft will have to reckon with their responsibility for how customers — including law enforcement and other government agencies — use their technology.
Amazon and Microsoft employees sent letters to their respective CEOs in the past week calling for an end to certain business relationships with law enforcement, immigration enforcement or customers who support them.
They were spurred by the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” policy that separated more than 2,000 migrant children from their parents to discourage asylum seekers and other immigrants.
Microsoft employees asked CEO Satya Nadella to end a $19.4 million contract with Immigrations and Customers Enforcement and with any other Microsoft customers that enable the agency.
“We are part of a growing movement, comprised of many across the industry who recognize the grave responsibility that those creating powerful technology have to ensure what they build is used for good, and not for harm,” the Microsoft employees wrote.
Amazon employees said they were concerned their company was complicit in the harsh policy by providing technology to customers that enable ICE and the Department of Homeland Security.
“In the face of this immoral U.S. policy, and the U.S.’s increasingly inhumane treatment of refugees and immigrants beyond this specific policy, we are deeply concerned that Amazon is implicated,” they wrote in a letter obtained by Gizmodo.
https://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/news/2018/06/29/amazon-microsoft-tmobile-immigration-ice.html?ana=e_mc_prem&s=newsletter&ed=2018-07-02&u=ColXVN5SPzQtLHFP87ho2w07857290&t=1530550247&j=82477821
I should warn you the other end goes to a pay wall