In the age of President Donald Trump’s crackdown on the H-1B and strict enforcement of immigration law, tech conglomerates are lobbying the Congress and White House for amnesty and more foreign labor.
These are the four tech companies, according to analysis by Quartz, pushing for no reforms to the H-1B visa and legal immigration system, as the current process of bringing more than 85,000 foreigners to the U.S. each year.
Microsoft
In the first quarter of 2017 during Trump’s presidency, Microsoft lobbied more for immigration and the H-1B visas than any other tech company. In Microsoft’s five out of eight lobbying reports, it referred to “high-skilled immigration,” which is synonymous with the H-1B visa, as well as mentioning “comprehensive immigration reform.”
Microsoft is generally the biggest pusher for more H-1B foreign workers and amnesty for illegal immigrant, lobbying for those issues in 340 lobbying reports since 2008, when former President Obama first took office. In 2017, Microsoft asked for more than 5,000 foreign workers through the H-1B visa.
The parent company to Google, Alphabet, remains one of the largest opponents in the tech industry to Trump’s “America First” agenda, which is why Quartz analysis showed it had the largest uptick in pro-immigration lobbying in the first quarter of 2017. In this quarter, alone, Alphabet lobbied more for immigration than ever before since 2008.
In Alphabet’s reports, according to Quartz analysis, executives used phrases like “travel ban” and “travel restrictions” in regard to Trump’s national security executive order that would have prevented refugees from terrorist-haven nations from entering the U.S.
Back in February, Google executives publicly opposed the travel ban, writing in a letter with other tech executives that the order “hinders the ability of American companies to attract great talent; increases costs imposed on business; makes it more difficult for American firms to compete in the international marketplace.”
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been, arguably, the most pro-immigration, pro-amnesty tech leader in the Trump era and before. In two lobbying reports analyzed by Quartz in the first quarter, Facebook argued against Trump’s travel ban to protect Americans from terrorism and voiced opposition to any changes in the H-1B visa program, despite widespread reported abuse and displacement to American workers.
Aside from opposing a halt in foreign refugees coming from terrorist-sanctioned nations and crackdowns on any foreign guest worker visas, Zuckerberg has his own open borders lobbying group, known as FWD.us. The organization calls for the amnesty of the 12-30 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. and demands more foreign workers through the H-1B visa. Facebook continues to profit from the use of foreign workers, requesting nearly 3,000 to fill U.S. jobs from 2014 to 2016.
Amazon
Amazon lobbied once during the first quarter of Trump’s presidency, making it one of the least involved tech companies on the immigration issue, along with IBM and Apple, who did not lobby for more immigration from the administration at all last quarter.
Amazon remains a big winner from sourcing foreign labor. Between 2014 and 2016, Amazon asked for 6,395 H-1B employees.
The H-1B visa has been criticized by Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions as a way for giant corporations to profit off the displacement and firing of Americans.
In a more recent executive order, Trump called for a “full legal review” of the H-1B visa and its negative impacts on the wages, job opportunities and unemployment of American workers, Breitbart Texas reported.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart Texas. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
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