President Donald Trump bans citizens of Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, Iran, Iraq, and Syria from entering the United States for a period of 90 days. This has caused a number of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and executives from giant tech companies to panic.
Giant tech companies condemn executive order
Giant tech companies such as Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, and more condemn the executive order signed by Trump to ban immigration from mostly Muslim countries, The Wall Street Journal reported. These companies argue that the executive order is against the principles of a nation that supports diversity and an industry that has foreigners working on the top ranks. These companies immediately sent out notifications to their immigrant workers as well as contingency plans for their employees who are currently abroad.
The technology industry was shocked with Donald Trump's decision to sign the executive order. Employees in the tech industry thought that the issue on immigration is only focused on H-1B visas, which are given to high-skilled foreign employees made available every year. The tech sector, which relies heavily on foreign software engineers to fill their demand for workers has long been fighting for the lifting of the H-1B visa program so that more foreign workers can work temporarily in the US, LA Times reported.
Immigrants advised to stay inside US
Los Angeles immigrant lawyer Ayda Akalin, who handles a lot of top executives from the tech industry who are immigrants, advised all his immigrant clients, especially the Muslims to stay inside the US. Before the executive order was signed, she was still confident that immigrant workers have nothing to worry about, but all of that changed after Friday.
Akalin's clients were concerned over the executive order. These clients either had pending visa applications, or have been living and working in the United States Visas. This means nobody feels safe, even Akalin, who immigrated to the US from Iran at the age of 5.
Some of the big players in the tech company that condemned the executive order includes Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Microsoft President Brad Smith, Apple CEO Tim Cook, and Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk, to name a few. Even Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that he and his wife are descendants of immigrants and that the US is a nation of immigrants.
