Microsoft Workers Stand in Solidarity with Githubbers in their Demands to Cancel their Contract with ICE

Microsoft has the following contracts with ICE (source):

Dear Githubbers,

We - Microsoft workers - stand in solidarity with you.

As the parent company to GitHub, this contract with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) makes all of us working at Microsoft complicit to the unethical detainment of tens of thousands of immigrants and the various abuses to which ICE subjects them.

Through our technology, we've been contributing to the terrorism of ICE agents on our country's immigrant population and other people of color. We've been doing so for years. As of July 2018, Microsoft already had $8 million dollars in contracts with ICE. Every single product and service that ICE has available to them makes them more efficient, able to operate at a bigger scale, and more capable of committing widespread human rights abuses. If we continue to provide those tools to such organizations, we are continuing to take part in the oppression of immigrants.

Microsoft is an international company that professes to equality and diversity, and is built on the labor of many immigrants. So how can we continue to do business with an organization that endlessly terrorizes this populace? We demand that Microsoft upholds its own guidelines in our commitment for human rights. As leaders in the tech industry, we are paving the way for others to follow.

We stand with Githubbers' demand to cancel its contract with ICE, and all outstanding contracts that Microsoft has with the agency. As Githubbers have said, "Now is the time to take a stand, or be complicit."

Signed,

Microsoft Workers