Tech companies to Trump: Your travel ban still sucks (and we're here to help strike it down)
Tech companies have a message for Donald Trump — your travel ban is still garbage, and we're going to keep on fighting it.
More than 50 tech companies filed an official brief early Wednesday morning in support of Hawaii's efforts to strike down the most recent iteration of the Trump administration's efforts to prevent refugees and other immigrants from entering the U.S.
Their argument is essentially the same as the first time around — that it's going to hurt U.S. businesses and is, you know, morally disgusting.
Hawaii is claiming that the ban hurts the state by negatively affecting its ability to generate income from travel and tourism as well as its general reputation as a friendly location with a diverse population.
Wednesday's brief highlights the tech community's united front against the Trump administration's travel ban, which came together relatively quickly after the first ban was announced in January.
Airbnb, Electronic Arts, Lyft, Pinterest, Square and many more signed on to the brief, which claims the ban will cause "significant and irreparable harm on U.S. businesses and their employees, stifling the growth of the United States' most prominent industries."
The brief (which can be found below in its entirety) highlights just how important immigrants have been to the tech community and U.S. business in general. "Indeed, forty percent of Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or by their children.6 These companies together account for over $4.25 trillion in annual revenues and collectively employ more than 10 million people.7 This trend shows no sign of slowing," the brief states.
Massachusetts, New York, Oregon and Washington are also challenging the ban, which goes into effect on Thursday. Those efforts are hoping that a judge will see fit to block Trump's executive order much like the first time around, when a Seattle federal judge put a temporary restraining order on the ban that was later upheld on appeal by a three-judge panel.
While the tech companies do have business interests that push them to oppose the ban, the brief also agues that the ban is downright un-American.
"A travel ban based on national origin or religion runs directly contrary to the principle of inclusion that is the bedrock of our country," the brief states.
The full list of companies on the brief, followed by the brief itself.
1. Airbnb, Inc.
2. AltSchool, PBC
3. Ampush LLC
4. Appboy
5. Appnexus, Inc.
6. Azavea
7. CareZone, Inc.
8. Chegg, Inc.
9. Cloudera
10. Color Genomics, Inc.
11. Copia Institute
12. DoorDash
13. Dropbox, Inc.
14. Electronic Arts
15. EquityZen Inc.
16. Evernote Corporation
17. Flipboard
18. General Assembly Space, Inc.
19. Glassdoor, Inc.
20. Greenhouse Software, Inc.
21. IDEO
22. Imgur, Inc.
23. Indiegogo, Inc.
24. Kargo Global, Inc.
25. Kickstarter, PBC
26. Light
27. Linden Research, Inc. d/b/a Linden Lab
28. Lithium Technologies, Inc.
29. Lyft
30. Lytro, Inc.
31. Mapbox, Inc.
32. Marin Software Incorporated
33. Meetup, Inc.
34. Memebox Corporation
35. MongoDB, Inc.
36. NetApp, Inc.
37. Patreon, Inc.
38. Pinterest, Inc.
39. Postmates Inc.
40. Quora, Inc.
41. RealNetworks, Inc.
42. RetailMeNot, Inc.
43. Rocket Lawyer Incorporated
44. Shutterstock, Inc.
45. Square, Inc.
46. Strava, Inc.
47. SugarCRM
48. Sunrun, Inc.
49. TripAdvisor, Inc.
50. Turo, Inc.
51. Twilio Inc.
52. Udacity, Inc.
53. Upwork
54. Warby Parker
55. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
56. Work & Co
57. Y Combinator Management, LLC
58. Zendesk, Inc.
Tech companies amicus brief by mashablescribd on Scribd
Featured Video For You
Change up your living space with these building blocks