Microsoft CEO blasts Trump border policy while downplaying tech giant's role with ICE

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said he is “appalled at the abhorrent policy of separating immigrant children from their families at the southern border of the U.S.”

But Nadella also sought to downplay his company’s $19.4 million contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to help the agency process data and use Microsoft technology to speed up facial recognition and identification at the border.

A hundred Microsoft employees have signed an open letter published in The New York Times demanding that Microsoft cancel its contracts with ICE.

Under the title “My views on U.S. immigration policy” on LinkedIn, the Microsoft CEO said the Trump Administration’s policy “implemented on the border is simply cruel and abusive.” And Nadella provided a link to a corporate blog post by Microsoft President Brad Smith that outlined the company’s position on separating children from their parents on the Mexican border.

But Nadella also sought to downplay Microsoft’s role in the border action and did not directly address calls to cancel the ICE contract, which has sparked a groundswell of outrage among Microsoft employees. In an article in Vanity Fair, Microsoft employees blasted their employer, with one worker saying, “It hits a little too close to IBM’s work during the Holocaust for me.”

https://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/news/2018/06/20/microsoft-nadella-trump-ice-migrant-children.html?ana=e_tf&s=newsletter&ed=2018-06-20&u=ColXVN5SPzQtLHFP87ho2w07857290&t=1529534863&j=82251491