{"id":367966,"date":"2018-07-04T11:06:51","date_gmt":"2018-07-04T10:06:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/100000-people-call-on-microsoft-and-other-tech-companies-to-drop-contracts-with-ice-and-border-patrol\/"},"modified":"2018-07-04T11:06:51","modified_gmt":"2018-07-04T10:06:51","slug":"100000-people-call-on-microsoft-and-other-tech-companies-to-drop-contracts-with-ice-and-border-patrol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/100000-people-call-on-microsoft-and-other-tech-companies-to-drop-contracts-with-ice-and-border-patrol\/","title":{"rendered":"100,000+ People Call on Microsoft and Other Tech Companies to Drop Contracts with ICE and Border Patrol"},"content":{"rendered":"
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WASHINGTON – A growing coalition of grassroots advocacy groups are demanding that Microsoft, Salesforce, and other large tech companies drop their contracts with immigration enforcement agencies like ICE and Border Patrol. Amid disturbing reports of widespread human rights abuses, more than 100,000 people have already signed on to petitions launched by Demand Progress, Center for Media Justice, Color of Change, Defending Rights and Dissent, Fight for the Future, The Nation, Presente.org, SumOfUs.<\/p>\n

The groups\u2019 demands echo those led by employees at\u00a0Microsoft<\/a>,\u00a0Salesforce<\/a>, and\u00a0Amazon\u00a0<\/a>whom have signed on to open letters saying that they do not want to be part of building software used to target immigrant families. The organizations plan to escalate their efforts in the coming days, including in-person protests and a petition delivery. See links to the separate petitions below.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe trauma of family separation will run deep for the children and families involved and big tech companies play a huge part in that. Technology can be used to protect or violate human rights. Companies like Microsoft and Salesforce have chosen to use their services to violate them all while saying they care about human rights. It\u2019s hypocrisy. \u00a0That\u2019s why we won\u2019t back down until all tech companies drop their contracts with ICE,\u201d\u00a0said Jelani Drew, Kairos Fellow at Fight for the Future, who launched\u00a0this petition<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cMicrosoft must honor the demands of its own employees and thousands of people across the country calling on the company to drop its contract with ICE. Otherwise, it will forever be remembered as the tech company that powered Trump\u2019s brutal policy of family separation and detention. The Trump Administration\u2019s attack on children and families is unconscionable and Microsoft\u2019s failure to act in the face of these glaring human rights abuses is beyond disturbing. History is calling, and it\u2019s asking Microsoft to take a side,\u201c\u00a0said Reem Suleiman, senior campaigner at SumOfUs, who launched\u00a0this petition<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cMicrosoft is approaching a day of reckoning. They\u2019ve gained millions while hundreds of families have lost their children. The company must now make a choice – \u00a0either help ICE continue to destroy families, or take action and cancel their contract. In the face of such inhumanity there is no other way,\u201d said Steven Renderos, Organizing Director at Center for Media Justice, who launched\u00a0this petition<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cCorporations supporting the inhumane policies of the Trump Administration have lost their moral compass and will be held responsible for the violence and suffering they profit from. No company should be in the business of caging families. On this 4th of July<\/span><\/span>, Presente members have declared their Independence from criminal or cowardly corporations who assist the President\u2019s immigration racket.\u201d\u00a0Said Matt Nelson, Executive Director, Presente.org (he\/him) who launched\u00a0this petition<\/a>.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIf Microsoft is as shocked and dismayed as they claim to be by ICE agents forcibly separating children from their parents at the border, then they have a moral obligation to take action and divest themselves from the \u2018mission critical\u2019 services they provide to ICE,\u201d\u00a0said Reuben Hayslett from Demand Progress, he launched\u00a0<\/strong>this petition.<\/strong>
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\u201cWe\u2019re seeing that employees inside tech companies are pushing for the products they build to be used in ethical ways for people at the border and around the world. Microsoft employees are not accepting executives\u2019 efforts to downplay the company\u2019s contracts with ICE and are demanding that their work not contribute to the operations of this agency,\u201d\u00a0said Yana Calou from Coworker.org, which provides education for employees raising their voices at work.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cTech companies contracting with ICE and CBP, including Microsoft, Salesforce, Thomson Reuters, Hewlett Packard, Motorola, and Dell are all complicit in and profiting from a violent and murderous mass incarceration and deportation scheme,\u201d\u00a0said Scott Roberts, Senior Campaign Director at Color Of Change which launched\u00a0this petition<\/a>.\u00a0<\/strong>\u201cNo child belongs in a cage, tent city, or juvenile detention center at any time or in any place. The act of separating and detaining families would not be possible without the massive bureaucratic and logistical machine behind it. It is not enough to simply speak symbolic words against these acts. Companies like Microsoft must take action in the one way that will make an actual impact, canceling their contracts. We will hold any corporation accountable for their role in advancing Trump\u2019s violence against our communities, and we will not stop they until heed the call of thousands of tech workers and people directly impacted by this crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCorporate complicity in human rights abuses can\u2019t be excused, it must be exposed and stopped. Our members are eager to hold tech companies accountable for profiting off contracts with ICE, and to call out the hypocrisy of companies that decry family separation while helping the Trump administration enforce draconian and inhumane immigration policies,\u201d\u00a0said Sue Udry, Executive Director of Defending Rights and Dissent, who launched this\u00a0petition<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Several other organizations have already begun preparing their own campaigns echoing these calls.<\/p>\n

###<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Via Common Dreams<\/a>. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON – A growing coalition of grassroots advocacy groups are demanding that Microsoft, Salesforce, and other large tech companies drop their contracts with immigration enforcement agencies like ICE and Border Patrol. Amid disturbing reports of widespread human rights abuses, more than 100,000 people have already signed on to petitions launched by Demand Progress, Center for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-367966","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=367966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367966\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}