Downtown San Jose South Market, Photo by XAtsukex via Wikimedia Commons
In the backdrop of anti-immigration rhetoric and incidents of harassment , over 100 American tech entrepreneurs have pledged to resist any erosion of civil liberties of their workers, who bring top talent from around the world to United State’s massive advantage.
“In Tech, we have an environment that celebrates the open exchange of ideas without regard to an individual’s background, religious practice, ethnicity or sexual orientation,” Dilawar Syed, President of software company Freshdesk wrote on the blogging platform Medium.com.
“This ethos has led to the creation of some of the world’s most admired brands — companies that have transformed the way in which the world lives, works, and communicates,” he explained in a piece that lists experts and business leaders supporting the pledge.
The anti-immigrant rhetoric during the 2016 campaign upset many tech entrepreneurs including industry giants that bank on inflow of fresh talent in the race for innovation and cutting-edge advantage over competitors.
On Wednesday, President-elect Donald Trump met with a galaxy of information technology leaders at Trump Towers in New York in a bid to repair strained relationship with the industry.
At the outset of the much-followed meeting, Trump came out with a conciliatory outreach, since a vast majority of tech companies had opposed election campaign rhetoric like banning Muslims from entering the United States are discriminatory profiling of people on the basis of religion or ethnic backgrounds.
Twitter and Facebook have said they would not be part of any drive to register members of any American community.
In a separate pledge, more than 1,200 employees of tech companies including Google and Twitter have vowed not to assist any move to build a Muslim registry.
Syed, a prominent Pakistani American business leader, was also once subject to registering under a post-9/11 program, National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS), which continued until 2011. Syed was living and working in high-tech in Silicon Valley, and like many others, underwent the experience of registering in the program.
The program was discarded by President Barack Obama in 2011 after widespread analyses that instead of securing counterterrorism support from communities, the selective program targeting mostly Muslims from more than two dozen countries was an obstacle as it amounted to alienating the community.
“We are saying that we want to protect civil liberties, and it is essential for business success and prosperity,” Syed told CNNMoney.
“This is an agenda that is as much of a business community’s agenda as it is one of folks who are activists, who are doing a great job of advancing rights,” the entrepreneur, whose company has been rated among the next billion dollar startups, said.
Trump has replaced his idea of a complete shutdown of Muslim immigration with “extreme vetting” of new visa seekers but statements by some of his supporters, and incidents of hate crime, have worried diverse communities. In an interview with CBS soon after his November 8 victory, Trump had asked Americans to stop harassing people.
At Wednesday’s meeting, he adopted a businesslike approach to working with Silicon valley leaders.
“We want you to keep going with the incredible innovation. There’s nobody like you in the world…Anything we can do to help this go along, we’re going to be there for you,” Trump said told some of the top executives on Wednesday.
“You call my people, you call me. It doesn’t make any difference. We have no formal chain of command around here,” added Trump as he shapes his administration due to begin on January 20, 2017.
