Ninety-seven U.S. companies, including Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, Snap, Netflix, Uber, and non-tech companies including Levi Strauss & Co., have filed an amicus brief in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals condemning President Trump's executive order on immigration.
"The Order represents a significant departure from the principles of fairness and predictability that have governed the immigration system of the United States for more than fifty years," the brief stated."The Order inflicts significant harm on American business, innovation, and growth as a result," it added."Immigrants or their children founded more than 200 of the companies on the Fortune 500 list."
"Immigrants make many of the Nation's greatest discoveries, and create some of the country's most innovative and iconic companies," the brief states. "America has long recognized the importance of protecting ourselves against those who would do us harm. But it has done so while maintaining our fundamental commitment to welcoming immigrants—through increased background checks and other controls on people seeking to enter our country."
Over the weekend, the ninth circuit court of appeals declined to lift a temporary restraining order, put in place by a U.S. district judge at the request of the states of Washington and Minnesota, preventing the continued enforcement of the Trump administration's executive order.
Apple's original response to the order, sent out as internal memo, read in part:
There are employees at Apple who are directly affected by yesterday's immigration order. Our HR, Legal and Security teams are in contact with them, and Apple will do everything we can to support them. We're providing resources on AppleWeb for anyone with questions or concerns about immigration policies. And we have reached out to the White House to explain the negative effect on our coworkers and our company.As I've said many times, diversity makes our team stronger. And if there's one thing I know about the people at Apple, it's the depth of our empathy and support for one another. It's as important now as it's ever been, and it will not weaken one bit. I know I can count on all of you to make sure everyone at Apple feels welcome, respected and valued.In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, "We may have all come on different ships, but we are in the same boat now."
Over the last few years Apple has been increasingly vocal in their support for personal privacy, civil rights, and equal opportunity, so being part of this action comes as no surprise.
The bigger question remains how public and how personal Apple, a company co-founded by the biological son of a Syrian immigrant, chooses to make the issue as they continue to oppose it.
Here's the full list of 97 companies, via TechCrunch:
- AdRoll
- Aeris Communications
- Airbnb
- AltSchool
- Ancestry.com
- Appboy
- Apple
- AppNexus
- Asana
- Atlassian
- Autodesk
- Automattic
- Box
- Brightcove
- Brit + Co
- CareZone
- Castlight Health
- Checkr
- Chobani
- Citrix Systems
- Cloudera
- Cloudflare
- Copia Institute
- DocuSign
- DoorDash
- Dropbox
- Dynatrace
- eBay
- Engine Advocacy
- Etsy
- Fastly
- Foursquare
- Fuze
- General Assembly
- GitHub
- Glassdoor
- GoPro
- Harmonic
- Hipmunk
- Indigogo
- Intel
- JAND d/b/a Warby Parker
- Kargo
- Kickstarter
- KIND
- Knotel
- Levi Strauss & Co.
- Lithium Technologies
- Lyft
- Mapbox
- Maplebear d/b/a Instacart
- Marin Software
- Medallia
- Medium
- Meetup
- Microsoft
- Motivate International
- Mozilla
- Netflix
- Netgear
- NewsCred
- Patreon
- PayPal
- Quora
- Rocket Fuel
- SaaStr
- Salesforce
- Scopely
- Shutterstock
- Snap
- Spokeo
- Spotify
- Square
- Squarespace
- Strava
- Stripe
- SurveyMonkey
- TaskRabbit
- Tech:NYC
- Thumbtack
- Turn
- Twilio
- Turn
- Uber
- Via
- Wikimedia Foundation
- Workday
- Y Combinator
- Yelp
- Zynga
