Google staff call for firm to cut ties with ICE

Google executives are facing pressure from staff over the company's ties to the federal government's crackdown on immigration enforcement, which in recent months turned violent and deadly.

In an open letter published on Friday, nearly 900 full-time Google employees demanded more transparency over what the company's technology is being used for inside the US government.

Google has contracts to provide federal agencies with cloud services and also has links to work being done on federal immigration enforcement.

In a call after the letter was published, a Google employee of seven years said he found it "mind-boggling" that Google was maintaining its ties with the immigration enforcement bodies.

The letter from Google employees follows a separate letter published two weeks ago and signed by hundreds of workers at various companies, including Amazon, Microsoft and Meta, calling for all tech companies to stop their work supporting the federal immigration crackdown.

In the last year, the Trump administration has stepped up its programme to forcibly remove immigrants, sending armed agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) into several cities.

Operations to carry out such removals lead to two high-profile killings of US citizens who were observing federal agents.

The Google employee forefronting the demands to management identified himself as Alex and said he joined the company seven years ago.

"I was proud to be working at a company with a moral compass. I'm not proud anymore," he said.

In 2018, amid pressure from thousands of employees, Google abandoned a contract with the Pentagon known as Project Maven to develop more efficient drone technology for use by the US military.

Alex added that he found it "abhorrent" coming to work each day now, knowing that his efforts were supporting the work of federal agents within Department for Homeland Security (DHS), ICE and CBP, or working on removing apps which the authorities find "threatening".

In October, Google said it had removed several apps from its app store which allowed users to report and document sightings of ICE agents. Apple did so as well.

Another Google employee, who identified herself as "S", said she came to work for Google about three years ago, but said that had she known then of its work with federal agencies, she would have not have joined.

"This is not the company I signed up to work for – I would have never interviewed to work for a military contractor," she said.

Alex and S both said that they were speaking out now about Google's work with federal agencies because they objected to their work contributing towards militarised actions against people.

They added that inside the company the Google leadership, including chief executive Sundar Pichai, had failed to address the extent of Google's work with the federal government, leading to the open letter demanding more transparency.

Other demands from employees are that Google pull its technology from any work within DHS, ICE and CBP, that it provides its workers with protection from immigration enforcement activities, and that the company hold an all-hands meeting to address their concerns.

In addition to Google's cloud services for parts of the federal government, the company last year entered into partnerships with Lockheed Martin, a large military contractor, to deploy Gemini AI models in unnamed products and services.

Google also has a partnership with Palantir, a US company that provides much of the technology and operating systems used in operations for DHS, ICE and CBP, along with all six branches of the US military.

Alex, S and other signatories of the open letter to Google have had their employment with the company verified through their registered work accounts.

A Google spokesperson declined to comment.