14 DAY TRIAL // Tech companies are rallying together again to fight against Trump's second travel ban. Over 160 companies, including Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Snap, told a federal court in Virginia that the travel ban should be tossed.
According to a brief filed with the US District Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, a large number of companies in the tech industry say Trump's new order could inflict "substantial harm on US companies, their employees, and the entire economy."
They say that the order hinders the ability of American companies to attract talented employees, increases costs imposed on business, makes it more difficult for American firms to compete in the International marketplace and gives global enterprises a new, significant incentive to build operations, as well as hire new employees outside the United States.
This isn't the first time tech companies have united forces since Trump came into office, and it's the second time so many of them fight against these controversial travel restrictions.
Trump's second travel ban targets six countries
This time around, Trump's travel ban seeks to block access to the United Sates to travelers from six majority-Muslim countries, opposed to the seven from the first round.
Following the initial ban in January, companies such as Apple, Google and Facebook stepped out and spoke up against it. They issued official statements, their employees protested, and some of them started funding organizations like the ACLU which promised to fight against the orders and any other orders the White House may issue that clash with the Constitution.
Trump has recently signed another executive order that will change how H-1B visas are awarded. These are quite frequently used by tech companies to hire workers from foreign countries. We should probably expect tech companies to react against this order too.
The brief filed today is signed by some 160 companies, including Airbnb, Amazon, Adobe, Automattic Inc, Box, Cloudflare, Dropbox, eBay, EA Inc, Etsy, Evernote, Facebook, GitHub, Google, GoPro, HP, Imgur, Indiegogo, Kickstarter, LinkedIn, Lyft, Microsoft, Mozilla, Netflix, Patreon, PayPal, Pinterest, Quora, Reddit, Shutterstock, Spotify, Tumblr, Wikimedia Foundation, Upwork, Yahoo, Yelp and Zinga.