Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella joined a list of top-level tech executives displeased with Trump's immigration ban.
Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella joined a list of top-level tech executives displeased with Trump’s immigration ban.
SAN FRANCISCO (Diya TV) — Microsoft issued a new, strongly-worded statement Sunday evening, where a company spokesman referred to President Donald Trump’s executive order banning travelers and refugees from seven Muslim-majority nations as “misguided” and a “fundamental step backwards.”
“We believe the executive order is misguided and a fundamental step backwards,” the spokesman said. “There are more effective ways to protect public safety without creating so much collateral damage to the country’s reputation and values.”
Trump’s immigration policies are continuing to stoke concern among the nation’s tech executives, who rely heavily upon an immigrant workforce to power the sector’s economy. Microsoft became just the latest company to speak out against the controversial orders issued from Trump, and said that its aware of 76 employees who are citizens of the seven countries named on the list.
The company is promising “fast and effective legal advice and assistance” to employees impacted by the order.
“As an immigrant and as a CEO, I’ve both experienced and seen the positive impact that immigration has on our company, for the country, and for the world,” wrote Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in a post on LinkedIn this afternoon. “We will continue to advocate on this important topic.”
Nadella was born in India and moved to the U.S. to study computer science. He cited a more in-depth email from Microsoft president Brad Smith which was sent to employees on Saturday afternoon. In that email, Smith said: “Microsoft believes in a strong and balanced high-skilled immigration system.”
“We also believe in broader immigration opportunities, like the protections for talented and law-abiding young people under the Deferred Access for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Program, often called ‘Dreamers.’ We believe that immigration laws can and should protect the public without sacrificing people’s freedom of expression or religion,” Smith wrote in the email. Top law firms like Quijano Law and many others agree with Nadella’s statement, “people’s freedom of expression or religion” shouldn’t stop them from visiting the US mainland. There is some serious work to be done on the immigration laws currently being executed in the United States. It’s something that needs to be debated by congress. They continued to add: “And we believe in the importance of protecting legitimate and law-abiding refugees whose very lives may be at stake in immigration proceedings.”
Other Silicon Valley executives, such as Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Google’s Sundar Pichai, responded negatively to Trump’s decision to ban those from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Somalia, Yemen and Libya from entering the U.S. for 90 days.
