Tech Industry Continues to Slam Trump Immigrant Ban
The tech industry continued Monday to criticize President Donald Trump's executive order banning citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S. for 90 days (see 1701290001). An analyst didn't see a lasting impact to the long-term relationship between tech executives and the administration, despite the strong backlash. Some Republicans who oversee telecommunications and technology issues defended Trump's moves, while a Democrat criticized them.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
Senate Commerce Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., said in an emailed statement to us that Trump "inherited a humanitarian crisis made worse by President [Barack] Obama's inaction. The ability of properly credentialed international visitors to come and go is important to our economy, including the tech sector. Some tech companies may be getting pressured to speak out and I suspect a short period of time will allow the administration to look at security concerns and move past these travel interruptions.” House Communications Subcommittee Chairwoman Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., in an emailed statement to us said, "Radical Islamic terrorists have pledged to infiltrate America's refugee program. We must be vigilant and protect our citizens. President Trump’s decision to temporarily suspend refugee admissions is a responsible approach, as I filed legislation in Congress calling for the same.” Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., Friday in a news release called Trump's order "more about extreme xenophobia than extreme vetting.”
“What is fascinating about this is the speed in which the news cycle is moving from topic to topic," emailed tech analyst Rob Enderle. He doesn't think this issue would have a long-term impact on the tech industry "once the order is properly implemented," he said. It's "clear much of the problem was that there was poor communication or preparation and senior staffing had yet to be completed leading to horrid implementation of the order," he added.
A letter signed by tech industry leaders against Trump's candidacy during the presidential campaign last year, said Enderle, "was far worse, in terms of administration cooperation, than this is and they recovered from that." In July, leading tech figures released an open letter against Trump, calling him "divisive" and said he may not "embrace" tech industry ideals such as equal opportunity, freedom of expression, openness to newcomers and respect for rule of law (see 1607140086). Enderle said unless Trump's order is broadened to include more countries or becomes significantly more restrictive, it's unlikely there would be any lasting adverse impact: "The Trump administration is going to have to get substantially better at execution than they now are, were this the Apprentice, the project leader for this effort would have likely been fired.”
In mid-December, Trump and his transition team, including close adviser and venture capitalist Peter Thiel, met with major tech leaders including top executives from Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, IBM, Intel and Microsoft (see 1612140060 and 1612120026) in New York. That largely private meeting was viewed as being conciliatory, with Trump telling the tech leaders that his administration would help them with innovation and trade issues. Now, many tech leaders publicly decried the immigration order as hurting their companies and U.S. innovation and the economy in general.
Computer & Communications Industry Association President Ed Black said in a statement Monday that the administration's "disregard for legal norms and due process" is concerning. "This hasty executive order is unlikely to achieve the desired goal and instead damages the principles that make this country a place immigrants aspire to work," he said. "It left companies scrambling to aid valuable employees with legal work visas, and in the long term risks our economy and safety." He added that discriminating against lawful U.S. residents and visa holders based on their national origin and religion is neither in the national nor economic interest: "It is not who we are." Members include Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Netflix and Samsung.
More than 400 business leaders from New York, including tech executives from Airbnb, Etsy, Foursquare, Lyft, Meetup and Uber, sent a letter Monday to Trump saying his recent orders "send a dangerous message to all immigrants that they are not welcome here." Besides the humanitarian reasons to admit refugees, they said, immigrant entrepreneurs are "twice as likely to start a business as the native-born population," pointing to Google, Intel, LinkedIn, Yahoo and WhatsApp. "More than half of the companies on the current list of U.S. technology startups valued at $1 billion or more were started by immigrants," they wrote. The letter called for Trump to rescind his recent orders. Intel said in a Sunday blog post that it was co-founded by an immigrant and that it would support "potentially impacted employees, all of whom are in this country lawfully.”
Friday's executive order from Trump indefinitely bans Syrian refugees from entering the U.S. and suspends other refugee admissions for 120 days. The order also bans visitors from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for 90 days. Even U.S. legal permanent residents were banned by U.S. immigration officials until Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly reversed that provision Sunday.
The order "was taken with little forewarning, has several provisions that lack clarity, and seems to even impact individuals that are lawful permanent residents of our nation," said CompTIA President Todd Thibodeaux in a Monday statement. BlackBerry CEO John Chen said in a Monday blog post that he was "disheartened" about the immigration ban since he and half his executive team and many employees are immigrants. He said if the issue isn't resolved, it will hurt trade globally.
Other groups weighed in against the Trump immigration orders. President Linda Moore said Sunday in a statement that while TechNet supports efforts to fight terrorism, it "opposes all discrimination, including on the basis of race, religion, and country of origin. The orders create "considerable uncertainty" and "adversely impact technology workers" here, said Moore, adding that the immigration system needs to be changed to ensure that the best and more ambitious individuals can work in the U.S. A joint statement Sunday from Writers Guild of America, East President Michael Winship and Writers Guild of America, West President Howard Rodman condemned what they called a "profoundly un-American ‘Muslim ban.’" The Telecommunications Industry Association said it's reaching out to its members on the issue. USTelecom, CTIA, AT&T and Verizon didn’t comment. NAB "is proud of the remarkable coverage of this issue by local radio and TV stations and our network broadcast partners," a spokesman said.