Slashdot Mirror
97 Tech Companies Including Apple, Google, Microsoft Call Travel Ban Unlawful In Rare Coordinated Legal Action (washingtonpost.com)
An anonymous reader shares a WashingtonPost report: Silicon Valley is stepping up its confrontation with the Trump administration. On Sunday night, technology giants Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Netflix, Twitter, Uber and many others filed a legal brief opposing the administration's contentious entry ban. The move represents a rare coordinated action across a broad swath of the industry (Editor's note: the link could be paywalled; alternate source) -- 97 companies in total -- and demonstrates the depth of animosity toward the Trump ban. The amicus brief was filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, which is expected to rule within a few days on an appeal by the administration after a federal judge in Seattle issued late Friday a temporary restraining order putting the entry ban on hold. The brief comes at the end of a week of nationwide protests against the plan -- as well as a flurry of activity in Silicon Valley, a region that sees immigration as central to its identity as an innovation hub.From a TechCrunch report: Notably absent from the list of 97 companies are several who met with Trump prior to his inauguration: Amazon, Oracle, IBM, SpaceX and Tesla. Although Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos was highly critical of Trump prior to his election, he has not spoken out against the immigration policy. Oracle CEO Safra Catz is serving as an advisor to the Trump transition team, while SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has defended his decision to remain on an advisory council for Trump.
Executive order is not a law, so it can be unlawful. Unconstitutional is a special type of unlawful, since the constitution is a law itself.
Pretty much all work visas have an "Unable to hire someone local to do the same job" test, though for some it's weaker than others.
One of the frustrating things about criticism of the Trump EO is that so many people assume laxity about the current system but have literally no idea what's involved in existing immigration. To be blunt, unless you're traveling from a handful of countries that participate in what used to be called the Visa Waiver program (and for work visas, even if you do), you already have to jump over numerous hurdles, including various levels of background check, to gain access to the US. That was the case even long before 9/11, but it's even more strict now.
(FWIW, I am someone who emigrated from one of the countries that participates in what used to be called the visa waiver program. It's a sign of how long ago it was that I still call it that. I've had work visas, and my employer had to prove that my skills couldn't be found within the US. Even what they proved wasn't enough to get me an actual green card. And as part of getting the green card - I was lucky enough to find love here - I was subjected to a background check that took so long the immigration officer at my hearing was actually frustrated about that.)
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
You must be new here. It has long been known that tech companies are finding ways around these rules. There have been many documented cases of domestic workers losing their jobs and being replaced by these workers, I'm sure if that is the case then companies aren't going out of their way to find someone somewhere in the US to fill open positions. I'd be interested in knowing what skills you have that no American anywhere would have. I'm sure there are people out there but it has to be a rare circumstance and a rare specialty.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
List of countries comes from Section 217(a)(12) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (Signed by Obama)
Section 212(f) of the INA, U.S. Code 1182 - Inadmissible aliens: "Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate."
Congress already approved the, Trump just invoked it.
Non-citizens of this country have no affirmative right to reenter this country. Is it in the constitution? Is it in the bill of rights? It's not. If you have a visa or green card, we don't have to let you come back. Heck, it even says it on your visa application page:
Question: "After I have my visa, I will be able to enter the U.S., correct?
Answer: "A visa does not guarantee entry into the United States. A visa allows a foreign citizen to travel to the U.S. port-of-entry, and the Department of Homeland Security U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) immigration inspector authorizes or denies admission to the United States."
So this lawsuit is FUD, it's a bunch of leftist companies whining, pissing, and moaning that they can't get their cheap labor or doing their SJW duties. The only saving grace for the leftist is SC is split between 4 leftist, 2 rightist, and 2 RINOs...
*Please note before you start attacking me. I for open borders, but only after we: 1) Remove the federal welfare system completely, 2) make citizenship easier to obtain. I have no issue with Trumps temporary ban, considering all of the nations listed are failed states. Kind of hard to ask those governments who these people are when they're engulfed in civil wars (or there is no government).
No, I'm not new here, I'm someone with actual experience of the system, rather than someone who's just heard news headlines and has taken some particularly egregious abuses of the system and extrapolated it to the entire thing. There's a reason the Disney IT outsourcing thing made headlines, and why Disney walked it back, and it's not because it was business as usual.
Why was I hired and accepted? I had a combination of speciality and lack of people willing to work in the location the business concerned was located at. Essentially it was a US outpost of a UK office, and the US outpost had no developers who knew the current system - not just the developer knowledge, but the business knowledge.
From the point of view of anyone looking from the outside concerned about US jobs, hiring me was a no-brainer. It meant that there could be a local development office, with many local, American, developers. Those Americans literally wouldn't have gotten jobs if I hadn't gotten a job there. We know this because they tried, and it didn't work. The next step would have been to fire two American developers left and just have the UK office develop everything.
This worked for the non-immigrant work visa my company applied for, but even that wasn't enough to get a green card. Why? Because in theory I had a US shelf life - over time, the office would have had the skills it needed transferred, and so the six years or so I could legally stay (that's another story) would have been more than enough to get that job done.
Should that change? As long as you make the story about hiring Americans first and only hiring non-Americans if they can be justified, you'll always end up with green card requirements being stricter than work visas. For those who argue - as many do here - that green cards should be the default instead of work visas, because the latter are too easy to abuse, you're making the wrong argument if you couple it with a "Hire Americans first" justification.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
"Why are only tech companies doing this?"
I guess you missed the individual states that have sued, the pro-immigrant, and all those expensive anti-racist, anti-misogenist super bowl ads bought by other blue chip companies - Budweiser, Coca-Cola, Audi, etc.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
polls were within margin of error, they weren't widely out of whack. stop this revisionism. Trump had an outside chance and he squeaked through. It doesn't invalidate any of the polling methodology, if anything it challenges some non statistical assumptions about neglecting to poll some key areas. That's it.
IF "they treated their employees well with high compensation packages"???
Fuck, man, are you not paying attention?
Other than Uber which tries to classify its drivers as 'not employees', ALL of the tech companies pay their employees very well.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Islamic terrorists killed ~27000 people last year. That's a fair-sized war. It's simple rationality to keep that war off our shores - like any other war.
It's not some fantasy. ISIS has bragged that they hide terrorists among "refugees", and they have done so, e.g. the recent Paris attacks. It's wonderful that it's not a real threat in the US - let's keep it that way,.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.