{"id":21849,"date":"2019-08-20T07:18:24","date_gmt":"2019-08-20T11:18:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/?p=21849"},"modified":"2019-08-20T07:18:25","modified_gmt":"2019-08-20T11:18:25","slug":"google-h-1b-ice-immigrationreform-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/2019\/08\/20\/google-h-1b-ice-immigrationreform-com\/","title":{"rendered":"Google, Immigration, and Corporate Virtue Signaling"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

According to the Washington Times<\/a><\/em>, \u201cHundreds of Google employees are calling on the company to pledge it won\u2019t work with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) or Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Googlers gesture is part of a developing trend where businesses\nignore profits in order to demonstrate how \u201cwoke\u201d they are. Many business\nanalysts have dismissed such actions as pointless instances of political kabuki\nthat resonate with a \u201csocially conscious\u201d millennial customer base. But is that\nan accurate assessment?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Google doesn\u2019t appear to have any current contracts with either CBP<\/a>\u00a0 or ICE<\/a>, nor does it appear to have done any direct business with them in the past. It does, however, indirectly do business with both agencies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to data aggregator Statista<\/a><\/em>.<\/a>com<\/a>,<\/em> in 2016 Google sponsored 924 foreign nationals for H-1B<\/a> visas, and in 2017 sponsored 1, 213 more. With approximately 5,000 H-1B workers, Google sits at number 12<\/a> on the list of the 25 companies with the most H-1B workers. And those numbers don\u2019t reflect the many other programs under which Google hires foreign workers \u2013 F-1 students on work-study called \u201coptional practical training,\u201d L-1 international managers and specialists, and employment-based green card applicants. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In short, Google has a vested interest in U.S. immigration policy because it wants a steady source of cheap high-tech labor<\/a>. That\u2019s why Facebook and Google have recently set 2018 lobbying expenditure<\/a> records, with a significant portion of that money spent advocating for looser immigration regulations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, the question must be asked: Has Google simply hired a\nprogressive-leaning workforce that feels comfortable asking its employer to\nplace virtue-signaling over the bottom line? Or is Google attempting to gain an\nextra bang for its lobbying buck by encouraging its employees to bash CBP and\nICE for performing their congressionally-mandated functions? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A betting man or woman would probably go with the latter option. But the answer to those questions has now become irrelevant. Managing our borders is a national security<\/a> function. As FAIR has repeatedly pointed out<\/a>, and as experience has repeatedly demonstrated<\/a>, criminals, terrorists, and foreign intelligence operatives are just as fond of weak immigration enforcement as unscrupulous employers \u2013 just for different reasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As such, both CBP and ICE would be well within their rights to tell\nGoogle and other tech companies like them: \u201cYou\u2019re off our list of approved\nvendors. Because your publicly expressed views on immigration policy make it\nvery clear that we can\u2019t trust you to build us safe, secure systems that work\nproperly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If Google wants to send a message that it values the interests of\nforeigners over those of its U.S. customers, it can certainly do so. But\nthere\u2019s nothing that stops the U.S. government from sending a clear message\nthat it\u2019s going to protect American sovereignty, public safety and national\nsecurity \u2013 even if certain segments of corporate American would prefer it to do\notherwise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to the Washington Times, \u201cHundreds of Google employees are calling on the company to pledge it won\u2019t work with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) or Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).\u201d The Googlers gesture is part of a developing trend where businesses ignore profits in order to demonstrate how \u201cwoke\u201d they are. Many business<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":52,"featured_media":13980,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[7],"tags":[1524,831,1900,1135],"yst_prominent_words":[2109,3072,2300,2173,4099,2319,1995,2181,2750,1932,6407,1918,1963,2084,5142,2095,6403,1939,2128,1937],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21849"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/52"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21849"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21849\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21850,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21849\/revisions\/21850"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21849"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=21849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}