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Amazon, Facebook, Google, Snap and more than 150 other tech companies told a federal court in Virginia today that it should toss U.S. President Donald Trump’s latest attempt to ban refugees and travelers from many majority-Muslim countries.
In a brief filed in the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, a host of Silicon Valley heavyweights lambasted Trump’s new order — his second attempt, after a judge blocked his first one — and stressed it would inflict “substantial harm on U.S. companies, their employees, and the entire economy.”
The order, they continued, “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 — and hire new employees — outside the United States.”
The brief — filed today by a total 162 tech firms, including Uber, SpaceX, Spotify and Twitter — represents the Valley’s latest legal salvo against Trump’s immigration policies.
When Trump issued his initial ban in January, the leaders of Apple, Facebook and Google emerged as some of its earliest critics. They sounded off in public statements while their employees protested, and they joined the likes of Amazon and Microsoft in a legal brief challenging the president’s first attempt at a ban. A judge in Washington state ultimately halted implementation of that executive order, leading to the second version that Trump unveiled in March.
Meanwhile, many in the tech industry have fought to ward off other major changes to U.S. immigration policy, including new restrictions on the country’s high-skilled visa program.
Trump, however, signed another executive order on Tuesday that begins a process to rethink how those visas, called H-1Bs, are awarded. And his administration has promised greater scrutiny for companies that employ foreign workers instead of Americans.
Amicus brief of 162 technology companies by April Glaser on Scribd
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
