Uber CEO Travis Kalanick on Thursday resigned from President Trump’s business advisory council amid fierce blowback against the president’s recent executive order on immigration, and in the wake of reports that several major Silicon Valley firms, including Facebook, Apple, Microsoft and Google, have been circulating a draft letter opposing Trump’s action.
Kalanick said he no longer would participate in the council after consumers railed against Uber for continuing to operate at John F. Kennedy International Airport over the weekend. The Taxi Workers Alliance in New York had gone on strike, refusing to pick up fares at the airport, to protest Trump’s executive order on refugee resettlement and travel from seven predominantly Muslim nations.
“Earlier today I spoke briefly with the President about the immigration executive order and its issues for our community,” Kalanick wrote in a memo to employees. “I also let him know that I would not be able to participate on his economic council. Joining the group was not meant to be an endorsement of the President or his agenda, but unfortunately it has been misinterpreted to be exactly that.”
In the memo, Kalanick said he was proud to work with Thuan Pham, Uber’s CTO, and Emil Michael, the company’s senior vice president of business, both of whom are refugees who “came here to build a better life for themselves.”
Policy Backlash
A number of major tech players have been contemplating the publication of an open letter protesting not only Trump’s so-called Muslim ban, but also other proposed changes that they fear could damage their companies’ ability to conduct business around the world, according to published reports.
The draft letter, first reported by ReCode and Bloomberg News, calls on the Trump administration to reconsider several key policies in addition to the halt in refugee resettlement into the U.S.
The letter also urges the administration to reconsider its policies with regard to Dreamers — that is, children of illegal immigrants who face deportation and the breakup of their families, a group that President Obama wanted to protect.
The Silicon Valley leaders’ concerns go to the heart of the ability of their firms to recruit staff and conduct business. Many of their top executives, as well as professional programmers and engineers, have been recruited from Asia, the Middle East, and other parts of the world that are impacted directly by the Trump administration’s recent and proposed executive orders.
Thousands of Silicon Valley professionals work under H-1B visas that allow highly skilled foreigners to remain in the U.S. as long as they continue to work for the companies that recruited them.
After Trump signed the immigration ban, it was not only foreigners attempting to reach the U.S. for the first time who were impacted. Visa holders who were traveling overseas on business also were caught up in the chaos.
Key Contributors
Immigrants are twice as likely as native-born Americans to start new businesses, said Arnobio Morelix, senior research analyst and program officer in research and policy at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.
More than half of the billion-dollar startups in the U.S. were launched by immigrants, and 70 percent of those unicorn companies have immigrants as key members of their management or product development teams, he told TechNewsWorld.
More than 40 percent of Fortune 500 companies were launched by immigrants and their children, and Silicon Valley is the metro area with the most immigrant entrepreneurs in the country, the foundation’s data shows. Immigrants account for 41.9 percent of entrepreneurs in the San Jose metro area.
It’s unlikely that the Trump administration will back down on the immigration issue, despite the concerns raised by the technology industry in the draft letter that’s been circulating, according to Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group.
“I doubt it,” he told TechNewsWorld, as “the president is pretty set on his plan, and it was a key campaign promise.”
It such an open letter were published, it might upset Trump to the point where he would rescind his pledge to help the technology industry by cutting back on government regulations, Enderle feared.
Secondary Strategy
It’s doubtful the letter tech leaders reportedly are signing would have any effect on the president’s opinion or his executive order, suggested Charles Kind, principal analyst at Pund-IT.
“In the first two weeks of his administration, Trump has shown himself to be willful, combative and quick to take offense — none of which are qualities one associates with a desire to seek compromise,” he told TechNewsWorld.
That said, “simply writing the letter could be as important for tech companies as finding a way to get through to the administration,” King continued.
“The fact is that the impact of the executive order on Silicon Valley’s employment of foreign-born engineers is just one of the elements in play here. More important will be the effect that Trump’s unilateral actions and ‘America first’ intentions have on foreign markets, many of which are crucial to the current and future health of U.S. tech companies,” he explained.
“If Mr. Trump sparks crises,” said King, “including trade wars with formerly friendly allies — and it seems likely that he will — the immigration letter signers’ willingness to confront the president could help them maintain their good standing with trusted partners and customers who are otherwise threatened by the administration’s policies.”
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I would tend to agree with Jesscott in the previous post. I would be willing to bet the biggest issue is their ability to use workers from overseas for a much lower wage. Step back and take a good hard look at these problems from 10,000 feet. Our government let things get so far out of hand that the illegals that are already here can protest in such massive numbers, and demand resources and benefits. It is going to require a firm stance and things will get better. Follow the law, and enter properly and you will see it is a pretty nice country. We just have some house cleaning to do.
I AM so tired of over reactions in the US to everything. So your candidate didn’t win, that doesn’t make it unfair. So a few Muslim populated countries harbor terrorists. The reality of protection is that you have to blanket target a area to protect all. There is no real possible solution to vetting people from certain countries because the US has no diplomatic connections with them. Yes it makes for more issues for everyone, but the alternative like the TSA in airports is to allow terrorists to circumvent the system and attack us from within. This has worked well in Europe and we do not want that here. The Visa process does not give you citizen status. We are not robbing you of anything. You are allowed here because the immigration policy allows it. It can always be changed, and a pause was needed to prevent people from coming here for no other reason than to hurt us. On a personal level myself, I wonder why we as US citizens don’t get as upset with out homeless, or our unemployed, or the fact Chicago has such a high crime rate or murders? Why does a few thousand inconvenienced non citizens bother so many? Maybe it’s because companies like Google have far more vested in visa workers than US workers? Maybe their focus is on company profit and success and not on keeping America safe? The President’s only responsibility is the safety of our citizens. We live in a violent world and its about time we realize that and with that comes sacrifices. Same as we have endured more security at airports, and more vetting to obtain visa’s. Maybe if we had been more proactive against ISIS this might have been avoided? Has anyone thought of that?