Tech workers ask their bosses to pressure Trump over ICE crackdowns | Hacker News Reader

Tech workers ask their bosses to pressure Trump over ICE crackdowns

washingtonpost.com

46 pointsreaperducer27 comments

It is the tech workers that have enabled all of this. Tesla, Meta, Google, X, don't run on their own. They need people that have decided to turn a blind eye to what they are enabling with their work.

Lots of tech bros voted for this too. Brown and Yellow ones too, who, even with their million dollar TCs aren't rich enough to avoid being harrased or worse, by ICE.

ICE needs to be shrank down to 2003 levels.

And no selective protections. Not like how meat and dairy processors were corruptly shielded from immigration raids and tacitly allowed to break the law unlike everyone else.

The corruption, lawlessness, and brutality of the paramilitary kidnapping gestapo has to end.

2002, ideally.

> The corruption, lawlessness, and brutality of the paramilitary kidnapping gestapo has to end.

This kind of incendiary rhetoric is very unhealthy.

Which part is incorrect?

How would you characterize what ICE is doing in the Minneapolis area? There are plenty of videos at this point of questionable behavior, to say the least. The chief of the MPD talked about how his officers of color have been harassed when they're not in uniform. I've listened to several historians and experts on autocracy talk about ICE in those terms.

Well, I certainly wouldn't use the words "paramilitary kidnapping gestapo". That is an absurd overstatement and amounts to propaganda.

Strictly speaking it probably gives them slightly too much credit; the Gestapo was a conventional secret police force which had rules, however abhorrent, that it was largely bound by. “Paramilitary kidnapping SS” might more closely fit the lawlessness on display. At this point it appears to be more private army than law enforcement.

But not as unhealthy as the actions accurately described by the “rhetoric”.

This website is amazing.

People doing fascism - meh, flag, move on.

People calling the people doing fascism rude names - HOW DARE YOU

People should stick to the truth. Accusations of fascism, gestapo, etc. are not.

They are breaking down doors without warrants, dragging citizens out of cars, lying about shootings and car rammings, beating protestors up, dragging them across pavement and putting them in choke holds or kneeling on their necks, detaining citizens, kidnapping kids and sending them to detention centers out of state, ignoring due process and making death threats. This done in blue cities where Democratic officials are threatened with legal action.

Play semantic games if you want, this is full on authoritarian stuff that doesn't belong in America.

I thought they fired most of these people. I guess more cuts incoming.

I think people would be more sympathetic to this if the tech job market wasn’t completely frozen as it is now. Hard to make the case for more immigration when so many American CS grads are struggling with unemployment. E.g. I think they should ask their CEOs to hire more people before asking for more immigration.

The letter does not appear to ask for "more immigration"

If you are calling for an indefinite pause on immigration enforcement, the optics of that are de-facto pro-immigration, e.g. who is going to enforce worker visas overstays if not ICE?

At tech companies? The company lawyers and HR, just like today. They are asking for a pause on immigration raids.

From what I’ve seen, tech companies are very lax about visa overstays. I’ve never heard of a tech company that actually enforces visa overstays or violations. (Why would they?)

Ah, so you admit that ICE’s public work of late has nothing to do with tech worker’s visas? They can just slide by while the more vulnerable are harassed?

INS (or its new parts) like before ICE was created in 2003? Otherwise the standard rules around hiring that apply across the country.

They are not calling for an indefinite pause on immigration enforcement.

This is kind of a silly argument as any sort of action on H1b visas has been perennially stalled, and ICE "enforcement" actions are specifically targeting the underprivileged or low skill labor.

Sure, just saying the optics of this is unlikely to garner much sympathy from the public. They should instead ask their bosses to cut down on H1B hiring then instead of ICE raids if ICE has nothing to do with tech.

My H1B teammates are awesome. I would rather keep them here in the States, thank you very much.

Perhaps our current administration could maybe reverse their policy course that has making us shed all of our international customers and making our domestic customers have to tighten their belts?

I would just like fewer masked maniacs abducting and murdering civilians in broad daylight

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