Tech companies intend to fight Trump’s executive order on immigration. Image: Wave Break Media/Shutterstock
Major US tech companies have filed an ‘amicus brief’, voicing opposition to President Trump’s immigration order.
Tech companies such as Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and Twitter have been quick to attack the immigration order made by the Trump administration last week, which caused mass confusion at airports across the world and restricted travel to the US for citizens of Syria, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Libya, Somalia and Sudan.
Other companies opposing the ban include Netflix, Square, Salesforce, Airbnb, Uber, Pinterest, AppNexus, Yelp, Reddit, Kickstarter, GitHub, Glassdoor, Box, Mozilla, Dropbox, Twilio, Zynga and Medium.
Some major tech brands were absent from the brief, notably Elon Musk’s Tesla and SpaceX as well as HP, IBM, Yahoo and Oracle. Musk is a member of Trump’s advisory council.
Trump’s tirade
US tech companies employ workers from all over the world and the spectre of a further executive order will make it harder for Silicon Valley to get visas for employees from overseas.
To counteract this, the companies filed an amicus brief in a case at the ninth circuit court of appeals in San Francisco, brought by the states of Minnesota and Washington to challenge US president Donald Trump’s executive order.
The tech companies were due to file their brief later this week but accelerated their moves in timing with critical developments over the weekend.
District court judge James Robart issued a ruling on Friday, effectively blocking the president’s executive order.
This prompted backlash from a furious Trump on Twitter.
The opinion of this so-called judge, which essentially takes law-enforcement away from our country, is ridiculous and will be overturned!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 4, 2017
“Just cannot believe a judge would put our country in such peril. If something happens, blame him and [the] court system,” Trump added.
