Tech giants speak out against Trump's 'unlawful' travel ban

By Katie Collins

2/6/2017

Nearly 100 tech businesses have jointly signed a legal brief that argues the immigrant travel ban will harm the US economy.

US President Donald Trump has been in office only two weeks, but he's already rubbing the nation's tech companies up the wrong way.

Apple, Google and Microsoft are among 97 technology businesses that banded together Sunday to file a legal brief against Trump's immigration ban.

The executive order, which bans citizens of seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the US for 90 days, "is inflicting substantial harm on U.S. companies," according to the filing.

The brief is the latest ripple effect from the ban, which has sparked protests across the nation and swift reaction from the tech industry. Many of the companies quickly opposed the ban when it was announced just over a week ago, with senior figures at many companies, including Apple CEO Tim Cook, denouncing the order. It caused Travis Kalanick, CEO of Uber, which is one of the companies to sign the brief, to resign from Trump's advisory council. Now those same companies, and many more, are putting their words into action by taking a stand in the legal battle over the ban.

The timing of the filing is key as Trump's administration has until Monday to provide legal justification for the ban after it was blocked by a temporary restraining order issued by a federal judge in Seattle on Friday. The judge's ruling means that key parts of the travel ban cannot currently be implemented nationwide.

The technology companies' amicus brief, which is a supporting piece of legal document filed by an interested third party, declares the executive order to be "unlawful." The companies filed it to the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals.

Over the weekend, Trump appealed to the circuit court, seeking an end to the legal obstruction to the ban. But the court decided to uphold the Seattle judge's decision temporarily, saying it would reconsider when it gathered more information.

The court will consider the tech companies' brief as it considers Trump's plea to end further legal action.

Their argument, which centers around the premise that America is "a nation of immigrants," is presented in 18 pages. "The Order represents a significant departure from the principles of fairness and predictability that have governed the immigration system of the United States for more than fifty years," the filing said.

As well as objecting to the ban as a matter of principle, the companies outlined in detail the economic ramifications of enforcing the executive order.

The ban prevents tech companies from attracting talent, increases business costs and makes competing in the global marketplace more difficult, the companies said explained in the filing. It also, they added, incentivizes them to build new operations and hire more employees outside of the US, the companies said.

It is this final point that is most likely to hit a nerve with Trump, who made a point during his election campaign to promise that American tech companies would move more of their operations into the country and create more jobs for US citizens. Last year, he criticized Apple for manufacturing many of its products abroad, and only last week tweeted that he would happily welcome Samsung into the US.

A Twitter spokesman and Google spokeswoman said their respective companies did not have anything to add outside of the brief itself. A Microsoft spokeswoman pointed back to a blog post published by the company's President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith last week.

The White House and a number of companies including Apple, Facebook and Uber did not immediately respond to our request for comment.