Google employees don't want company to work with US border agencies

Some Google employees called on the company to publicly promise not to work with US immigration authorities, which they said are abusing human rights.

US Customs and Border Protection recently said it was looking for proposals from companies to supply it with cloud-computing services. Google is a leading cloud provider. Activists and politicians have accused the agency of human rights abuses along the border with Mexico. The agency has separated children from their families, and is detaining migrants for indefinite periods of time.

The Google workers, who said they have a petition with 70 employee signatures, want the company to commit to not bid on the contract, as well as refuse to work on projects for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Office of Refugee Resettlement.

"We demand that Google publicly commit not to support CBP, ICE, or ORR with any infrastructure, funding, or engineering resources, directly or indirectly, until they stop engaging in human rights abuses," the protesters wrote. "Google’s AI Principles state that Google will not build technologies ‘whose purpose contravenes widely accepted principles of international law and human rights.’ By any interpretation, CBP and ICE are in grave violation of international human rights law."