Amazon and Expedia are the first two technology companies to oppose the immigration order as part of a lawsuit against the Trump Administration. Their main issue: the order will hurt their business. The suit asks the court to declare key parts of the executive order unconstitutional.
The order impairs both Expedia’s and Amazon’s ability to recruit and hire employees from overseas, which may undermine both, travel companies and international businesses.
This immigration ban has lit a fire in the hearts of many tech executives, as they too were once immigrant refugees. Expedia’s chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi, fled his home country of Iran after the revolution in 1978. “Ours is a nation of immigrants. These are our roots, this is our soul. All erased with the stroke of a pen.”
Though the lawsuit rests mainly on employment issues, there is a bigger picture here: people who are employed by these companies are now banned from their homes in the US, where their entire life is.
Employees of Google rallied at Google’s headquarters, making the Mountain View, California reminiscent of a college campus. The quad swarmed with employees protesting the order. Some signs said “Trump, Don’t Be Evil” and “Silicon Valley: Built by Immigrants.” Silicon Valley, which has produced some of Trump’s favorite media platforms like Twitter, was created ground up by immigrants from countries the executive order has banned.
At the protest was Google’s Co-founder, Sergey Brin, who came to the United States as a 6-year-old refugee when the wage of nuclear war was at its peak between the Soviet Union and the United States. “I wouldn’t be where I am today or have any kind of life I have today if this wasn’t a great country that stood up and spoke for liberty.”
Nick Wingfield and Daisuke Wakabayashi, Amazon and Expedia Join Lawsuit Against Immigration Order as Tech’s Resistance Grows, N.Y. Times, Jan, 31, 2017), at A20.