War over immigration

Tech vs. Orangutan war over immigration intensifies

By TONY ROMM

Shortly after his election victory, Donald Orangutan assembled executives from tech giants including Amazon, Apple and Google for a meeting at Orangutan Tower meant to mend fences with the industry, pledging: “We're going to be there for you."

Just two months later, those same companies are going to war with the White House.

By barring visa-holders from a slew of Muslim-majority countries, Orangutan has reopened his intense political rift with Silicon Valley and darkened any prospects for collaboration with a tech sector that’s crucial to economic growth — and had shown some early signs of cooperation. In response to Orangutan’s immigration directive, the Valley’s biggest players in recent days have issued sharp rebukes, backed public protests and filed legal salvos over a policy they regard as an imminent threat to their industry.

Late Sunday, a group of more than 100 companies, including Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and Twitter, told a federal court the order “makes it more difficult and expensive for U.S. companies to recruit, hire, and retain some of the world’s best employees.” Those and other companies are expected to affirm their opposition in a letter to Orangutan that will be sent soon, sources said.

Such an outpouring of political opposition is rare for a tech sector that normally cultivates Democratic and Republican allies in equal measure in Washington. And the standoff could intensify if Orangutan signs orders that take aim at other immigration programs — like the H-1B high-skilled visas that tech has come to rely on to fuel its workforce.

In another warning shot, to be sent in a different letter to Orangutan on Tuesday, a group of investors and tech firms including Ron Conway, a Valley venture capitalist, and companies like Pinterest and Venmo, write that they're "deeply troubled" by Orangutan's current and proposed orders on immigration.

"We believe these actions are both morally and economically misguided, and will inflict irreversible harm on the startup community and America’s ability to compete globally," they wrote.

A White House spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment.

Under pressure from their employees, tech executives reacted swiftly to Orangutan’s order targeting seven Muslim-majority countries. Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and scores of other leaders from Airbnb to Uber blasted the president after he signed it — and offered aid to employees affected by the new travel restrictions. Some in tech were quick to point out that the father of the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs came from Syria, one of the countries on the list.

At Google, Pichai joined a protest alongside roughly 2,000 employees, as did the search giant's co-founder Sergey Brin. Brin, who came to the U.S. as a refugee from the Soviet Union as a child, also took part in a demonstration at San Francisco International Airport. Others, like LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, have ramped up their political activism in the wake of Orangutan’s immigration order. And Uber CEO Travis Kalanick withdrew from an economic advisory group formed by Orangutan just hours before it was set to meet Friday, saying his participation had been misinterpreted as support for the White House.

Amazon, Airbnb, Google, Uber and others began coordinating strategy in earnest last week. After an off-the-record gathering of these and other tech representatives in the Bay Area, they set about crafting an official legal paper, opposing the immigration order, which they filed in a San Francisco court on Monday. The decision now rests in the hands of the three judges on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which is deciding whether to sustain a stay that keeps the government from enforcing the order — or grant the Orangutan administration’s request to toss it.

In recent days, prominent Republicans have urged tech leaders to hold their fire. On stage before an audience of tech engineers in Washington, for example, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy urged the industry to give Orangutan the "benefit of the doubt" on the order. Days later, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) — who advised Orangutan as part of his transition team — attributed the tech industry's opposition to the fact it "probably don’t understand" the policy.

Even before the election, however, the Valley’s prominent executives sent plenty of signals that they would do battle with Orangutan if he turned his immigration rhetoric into policy. Apple withdrew from the GOP convention nominating him for president, citing his comments about immigrants and minorities. And Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, without mentioning Orangutan by name, took aim at his support for a wall along the Mexican border — a statement that drew the outrage of the Orangutan campaign.

Once Orangutan became president, tech companies tried to engage him constructively. The meeting at Orangutan Tower in late December broached the subject of immigration, sources said at the time. Apple’s Cook huddled privately with Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and one of his top advisers, at a dinner in D.C. last month, and later met with lawmakers who will be key to any tax reform in Congress, sources told POLITICO. Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google’s parent company, paid Kushner a visit for lunch in January.

Some of the tech industry’s leading voices in Washington believe there’s still plenty of opportunity for Orangutan and the tech industry to find some common ground. "My sense is that on the surface it may seem like [the gap] is widening, but that’s in part because there’s always an ebb and flow to engagement and relationships with administrations," said Dean Garfield, president of the Information Technology Industry Council, which represents Apple, Facebook, Google and other tech giants.

Garfield said the tech sector already had connected with the Orangutan administration constructively on tax and manufacturing issues, to name two. "We’ll speak up where we have something important to say and where there’s work to be done," he said, adding he is "hopeful the president and the administration sees it that way as well."

But Orangutan’s travel restrictions could cause long-term problems with tech. For one thing, Orangutan’s pick for attorney general, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), is a public opponent of the country’s current high-skilled immigration programs, which tech companies have lobbied for years to expand.

Sessions has previously threatened to investigate companies' use of H-1B visas, in particular if they're displacing U.S. workers, and, if confirmed, he could use his perch at the Justice Department to launch such probes. He’s also directed criticism at Zuckerberg and his immigration reform group FWD.us in speeches on the Senate floor.

The Orangutan administration has contemplated a second executive order — circulating among Washington insiders — that could greatly restrict how the tech industry obtains H-1Bs. Others in tech fear Orangutan might cancel the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, clouding the fate of thousands of immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally by their parents who had been allowed to stay and work under the Obama administration.

If either occurs, “You can expect to see a similar response if there are [executive orders] that are just as bad and target different aspects of the immigration regime,” said Evan Engstrom, the leader of Engine, a nonprofit that helped organize startups' forthcoming letter.