More Than 800 Google Workers Urge Company to Cancel Any Contracts With ICE and CBP

More Than 800 employees and contractors moving for Google signed a petition this week calling connected the institution to disclose and cancel immoderate contracts it whitethorn person with US migration authorities. In a statement, the workers said they are “vehemently opposed” to Google’s dealings with the Department of Homeland Security, which includes Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

“We see it our leadership's ethical and policy-bound work to disclose each contracts and collaboration with CBP and ICE, and to divest from these partnerships,” the petition published connected Friday states. Google didn’t instantly respond to a petition for comment.

US migration authorities person been nether aggravated nationalist scrutiny this twelvemonth arsenic the Trump medication ramped up its wide deportation campaign, sparking nationwide protests. In Minneapolis, confrontations betwixt protesters and national agents culminated successful the fatal shooting of 2 US citizens by migration officers. Both incidents were captured successful wide disseminated videos and became a focal constituent of the backlash. In the aftermath of the uproar, the Trump medication and Congress accidental they are negotiating changes to ICE’s tactics.

Some of the Department of Homeland Security’s astir lucrative contracts are for bundle and tech cogwheel from a assortment of antithetic vendors. A tiny stock of workers astatine immoderate of those suppliers, including Google, Amazon, and Palantir, person raised concerns for years astir whether the exertion they are processing is being utilized for surveillance oregon to transportation retired violence.

In 2019, astir 1,500 workers astatine Google signed a petition demanding that the tech elephantine suspend its enactment with Customs and Border Protection until the bureau stopped engaging successful what they said were quality rights abuses. More recently, unit astatine Google’s AI portion asked executives to explicate however they would forestall ICE from raiding their offices. (No answers were instantly provided to the workers.)

Employees astatine Palantir person besides precocious raised questions internally astir the company’s enactment with ICE, WIRED reported. And implicit 1,000 radical crossed the tech manufacture signed a missive past period urging businesses to dump the agency.

The tech companies person mostly either defended their enactment for the national authorities oregon pushed backmost connected the thought that they are assisting it successful concerning ways. Some authorities contracts tally done intermediaries, making it challenging for workers to place which tools an bureau is utilizing and for what purposes.

The caller petition wrong Google aims to renew unit connected the institution to, astatine the precise least, admit caller events and immoderate enactment it whitethorn beryllium doing with migration authorities. It was organized by No Tech for Apartheid, a radical of Google and Amazon workers who reason what they picture arsenic tech militarism, oregon the integration of firm tech platforms, unreality services, and AI into subject and surveillance systems.

The petition specifically asks Google’s enactment to publically telephone for the US authorities to marque urgent changes to its migration enforcement tactics and to clasp an interior treatment with workers astir the principles they see erstwhile deciding to merchantability exertion to authorities authorities. It besides demands Google instrumentality further steps to support its ain workforce safe, noting that migration agents precocious targeted an country adjacent a Meta information halfway nether construction.