Trump Administration Adamant On Revoking DACA. Technology Giants Press Against Anti-Immigration Policies

The technological industry seems unsettled with Donald Trump’s recent shift of focus towards a list of crucial policies regarding the regulation of immigration and terrorism. This list includes, but is not restricted to, the ban on Muslims entering the United States from specific Muslim countries, decisions linked to the denial of climate change, and discrimination towards transsexual from participating in the military. However, there is one policy change that has rattled the technological industry more than any other, and it is none other than the H1-B work permits.

The inflexibility of the Trump administration to grant H1-B visas to foreign employees has shook up Silicon Valley, which used to fuel its ranks with top-notch engineers and professionals all across the globe. As a result of adopting stringent immigration policies, the Trump administration has spurred technological giants into action. Google, Amazon, Apple, eBay, Facebook, and Airbnb have asked President Trump to not revoke the DACA program created by the Obama administration.

The DACA, Deafred Action for Childhood Arrivals, was a program launched by former president Barack Obama to support young people entering the country with jobs or studies if they met a certain criteria. Estimates suggest that if the Trump administration were to revoke DACA, it would leave 800,000 people in a legal limbo. A lot of these 800,000 people are potential candidates to work in Silicon Valley and historically speaking, the immigrant workforce has proven vital to the country’s economic growth. This is the primary reason why technological giants have expressed a joint rejection of president Trump’s initiative through a mutually signed letter. The signatories include Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook, eBay, Airbnb, Johnny Zimmer, Lyft, Netflix, Salesforce, and Uber among many others.

This struggle has not been unidirectional. The president of the United States is targeting companies like Amazon, accusing them of importing labor from elsewhere when they can employ the American people. However, president Trump’s conflict with Amazon seems to be more deep-rooted and personal than it appears. The real conflict here might concern the founder of Amazon Jeff Bezos who also happens to be the owner of one of the most critical tabloids against president Donald Trump, the Washington Post. In any case, the conflict continues and does not seem to dissipate for the rest of president Trump’s candidacy. There is still ambiguity regarding what will remain of DACA, but one thing is quite clear: for president Trump the word Obama is synonymous with revocation.

[Featured image by Win McNamee/Getty Images]