AhlulBayt News Agency: More than 900 employees at Alphabet, Google’s parent company, have signed a petition urging the company to end its cooperation with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
This comes amid renewed efforts by President Donald Trump’s administration to deport large numbers of undocumented immigrants, according to Bloomberg.
The petition focuses on Google’s contracts with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the two DHS agencies leading deportation operations.
The signatories argued that Google’s technology is enabling enforcement practices they consider harmful and unethical.
Opposition to the administration’s deportation policies has intensified in recent weeks following fatal shootings in Minneapolis that left two U.S. citizens dead, fueling public and employee backlash. A Google spokesperson declined to comment, Bloomberg reported.
The initiative follows a broader wave of dissent within the tech industry. In early January, more than 1,700 tech workers signed a separate petition urging major companies to cut ties with ICE and pressuring the White House to remove the agency from U.S. cities.
Palantir Technologies, which provides software to ICE, has faced ongoing criticism and protests over its role in supplying surveillance tools to immigration enforcement.
According to the petition, the Google employees represent 16 different product divisions, with about 30% coming from Google Cloud.
The signatories say the company’s technologies are being used to facilitate what they describe as “state violence and repression.”
The petition specifically highlights the use of Google Cloud services in border surveillance and the deployment of artificial intelligence to increase “operational efficiency” for agencies accused of contributing to civilian harm and humanitarian crises, Reuters reported.
This criticism reflects a broader pattern of employee activism targeting Silicon Valley’s cooperation with immigration authorities, especially during Trump’s first term.
In 2019, demonstrators disrupted a speech by Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff at the company’s annual conference in protest of similar contracts.
In 2018, more than 4,000 Google employees demanded that the company withdraw from the controversial “Project Maven,” which used AI to analyze drone footage for the U.S. military.
Google later declined to renew the contract and pledged not to use AI in weapons systems, unlawful surveillance, or technologies that could cause “serious harm”—a commitment the company later softened.
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