More than 450 tech workers from companies including Google, Meta, OpenAI, Amazon, and Salesforce signed a letter urging their CEOs to pressure the White House to remove ICE operations from U.S. cities. The open letter, organized by IceOut.Tech, cites federal raids in Minneapolis, Los Angeles, and Chicago as increasingly violent and disruptive to local communities.
The letter followed recent shootings by federal agents, including the deaths of U.S. citizen Renee Good and ICU nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. Signatories warned that tech industry influence could affect federal actions, noting prior success when tech leaders opposed National Guard deployment in San Francisco.
Prominent figures have expressed concern, including LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, Google DeepMind chief scientist Jeff Dean, and Signal President Meredith Whittaker. However, many major tech executives, such as Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Apple’s Tim Cook, Google’s Sundar Pichai, and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, have largely remained silent.
The letter also urges CEOs to cancel company contracts with ICE, which could impact firms providing cloud, surveillance, and facial recognition services. Palantir, Clearview AI, AWS, Microsoft, and Oracle all maintain contracts supporting ICE operations, highlighting the financial stakes involved.
