On January 13, tech giant, Google, stated it would cover the application fees for approximately 500 young illegal aliens seeking employment under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. The company also pledged to donate $250,000 to United We Dream, an organization which assists illegal aliens in obtaining work permits and deferred deportation through DACA.
This comes ahead of a pending court decision in Texas which could put an end to the program altogether. Nine states, led by Texas, asked U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen to end DACA last month, stating that “President Obama overstepped his authority when his administration issued the DACA memorandum in 2012.”
The federal judge did not immediately issue a ruling. Judge Hanen previously rejected Texas’ 2018 request to halt the program through a preliminary injunction; however, he did indicate that the program may be unconstitutional.
Either way, Google has made its position on the matter clear. The outgoing administration, with the help of several FAIR policies, has spent the last four years undermining the company’s ability to hire foreign-born workers over American workers. Now, with an incoming Biden administration taking a very different approach to immigration, large companies like Google are looking to lead the charge to overturn the policies that have protected the interests of American workers.
Google senior vice president, Kent Walker, voiced his support for the incoming administration as well as the proposed increase in employment-based visa programs. Walker believes the increased visa totals would “enhance American competitiveness” and give “greater assurance to immigrant workers and employers.” Well Mr. Walker, what about the American people? What assurances will they be given?
The answer is little to none. This so-called enhancement of American competitiveness is just another way to say that the millions of Americans still struggling to find work due to the coronavirus pandemic will have to fight even harder to find employment. It means that many of them will get passed over for cheaper labor through the unfair guestworker visa programs.
In the past, Big Tech, with the help of their allies in Congress, have pushed for legislation that would allow them to hire an abundance of cheap foreign workers, primarily from China and India, over American STEM workers. Now, that they have an incoming president who is favorable to their agenda, we can expect the overreach of Big Tech on the American people to worsen.
Biden’s transition team is already stacked with tech executives from Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft. Many of these executives previously helped fundraise Biden’s campaign, and hope to be appointed to senior roles in his administration.
Positions in the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission are of special interest to those with commercial ties to the tech industry, especially as both departments are currently investigating whether Big Tech has abused its power, both in censorship and monopolization of the field by eliminating competition.
While Big Tech continues to lobby for more seats at the table, 32 antitrust, consumer advocacy, labor and related groups have asked Biden to reject Big Tech’s influence on his administration. So far, those pleas have fallen flat as multiple big companies have already gained significant places of influence on his transition team.
Such actions by the Biden team to align themselves with Big Tech should be of great concern to the American people on many fronts. It poses a difficult alliance, one that will move stealthily to push policies which benefit their allies in Silicon Valley, including easier access to cheap foreign labor and relaxed immigration regulation. Once again, the American people as a whole will be put on the back burner. The Biden administration must address the many threats posed by monopolistic Big Tech companies, especially those with a special interest in dismantling our immigration system, and remove such ties in order to do as his role requires: protect the American people.
