Michael Dell, Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai, Tim Cook and others pen letter to Texas governor weighing in implications of immigration enforcement efforts
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Republican state lawmakers are taking a tough stance on immigration. Earlier this month, Abbott signed a law allowing police to ask about the immigration status of any individual they detain, which erodes at so-called sanctuary city moves, like what’s happening in state capital Austin, wherein police largely do not enforce federal immigration-related detainment mandates. The debate in Texas is so partisan and emotional that, according to many media reports, the session on Monday ended with one legislator accusing another of physical assault.
As they does occasionally, leading figures in the tech industry jointly expressed their concern with the direction Abbott is pushing in Texas. Published on Memorial Day, here’s the full text of the letter:
“We are writing to express our steadfast opposition to the introduction and passage of any discriminatory legislation in Texas. Such laws are bad for our employees and bad for business.
“As large employers in the state, we are gravely concerned that any such legislation would deeply tarnish Texas’ reputation as open and friendly to businesses and families. Our ability to attract, recruit and retain top talent, encourage new business relocations, expansions and investment, and maintain our economic competitiveness would all be negatively affected.
“Discrimination is wrong and has no place in Texas or anywhere in our country. Our perspective is grounded in our values and our long-held commitment to diversity and inclusion.
“We strongly urge you and the Texas legislature not to further pursue legislation of this kind.”
The letter is signed, in no particular order by Amazon Worldwide Consumer CEO Jeff Wilkie, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Celanese Corporation CEO Mark Rohr, Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins, Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Gearbox Software CEO Randy Pitchford, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, GSD&M CEO Duff Stewart, Hewlett Packard Enterprise CEO Meg Whitman, IBM CEO Ginni Rometty, Microsoft President Brad Smith, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and Silicon Labs CEO Tyson Tuttle.
