About 900 Google employees demand severing ties with DHS
WASHIGTON, Feb. 08 (YPA) – More than 900 employees of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, have signed a petition urging the company to cut ties with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
This came amid renewed efforts by former President Donald Trump’s administration to deport large numbers of undocumented immigrants, according Bloomberg.
The petition is based on Google’s contracts with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the two DHS agencies spearheading deportation operations.
Signatories argued that Google’s technology was enabling enforcement practices they viewed as harmful and unethical.
Opposition to the administration’s deportation policies has intensified in recent weeks following fatal shootings in Minneapolis that left two U.S. citizens dead, further fueling public and employee backlash. A Google spokesperson declined to comment on the petition, Bloomberg said.
The latest initiative followed a broader wave of dissent within the tech industry. In early January, more than 1,700 technology workers signed a separate petition calling on major tech firms to sever ties with ICE and urging industry leaders to pressure the White House to remove the agency from U.S. cities.
Palantir Technologies, which provides software to ICE, has faced sustained criticism and protests over its role in supplying surveillance technology to immigration enforcement agencies.
According to the petition, the Google employees represent 16 different product divisions, with roughly 30% coming from the Google Cloud unit.
The signatories contend that the company’s technologies were being used to facilitate what they describe as “state violence and repression.”
The petition specifically highlighted the use of Google Cloud services in border surveillance and the deployment of artificial intelligence to enhance “operational efficiency” for agencies that employees accuse of contributing to civilian harm and humanitarian crises, Reuters reported.
The criticism reflected a broader pattern of employee activism targeting Silicon Valley’s cooperation with immigration authorities, particularly during Trump’s first term.
In 2019, demonstrators disrupted a speech by Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff at the company’s annual conference in protest of similar contracts.
In 2018, more than 4,000 Google employees demanded that the company withdraw from the controversial “Project Maven,” which involved the use of artificial intelligence to analyze drone footage for the U.S. military.
Google subsequently declined to renew the contract and pledged not to use AI in weapons systems, unlawful surveillance, or technologies that could cause “serious harm”—a commitment the company later walked back.