[Bostonian]

The U.S. government is a big spender on tech. Tech CEOs have an obligation to shareholders not to turn away big clients.

A sovereign country makes an effort to police its borders. It should do so humanely, and not expect 100% success in stopping illegal immigration, but immigration enforcement is a proper function. I get the impression that critics of tech companies doing business with ICE are against all enforcement.

[gugagore]

I am not sure about your impression. Maybe there are some people against all enforcement, but most people think there should be some balance between locking a person up for crimes, and treating a person humanely, like you said.

Society is us, and some of us have opinions about what we should look like. The critics are just that. They probably understand that in our society, there's an obligation to make the most money. But they also feel other moral obligations.

The critics and the not-critics generate this tension, and that can help us collectively figure out what we should look like.

The point being, shareholder obligation, and the belief in sovereignty and geo-political borders are only some pieces of what is ultimately a very deep question of who we, as a society, want to be. And I hope you appreciate that some critics, even the most extreme ones, are trying to answer that question.

[the_matrix]

Its quite funny that America was once heavily criticized for meddling in other country's affairs and inviting their hatred in return (pre 9/11 days). And now, they are criticized for exactly the opposite thing: Just minding their own business and securing it from outsiders!

[Miner49er]

The United States is likely the main cause of this immigration flow. We regularly meddle in the elections and politics of South American countries. [1]

Many of the immigrants coming to the US currently are fleeing Honduras, where we seemed to have supported a coup in 2011. [2]

Besides coups, our drug war has been exported to the area and has had a negative effect as well.

So yeah, the same people criticizing the US for meddling in other countries are criticizing it's immigration policy because the immigration problem is caused by the meddling. They think the United States should take responsibility for the problem it created.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...

[2] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-us-role-in-the-honduras-c...

[kalia35]

Securing a border != imprisonning children and separate them from their family

[microcolonel]

> ...separating them from their families.

When given the opportunity, the Democratic representatives refused to support a bill that simply reversed that one Clinton-era decision that leads to the separation of children from the people who claim to be their guardians at the border (who are, as it turns out, often not).

Much noise has been made about using these children as bargaining chips, by both sides, but neither seems to be totally above it.

[kalia35]

I think that's plainly wrong.

1. There is no need for a bill to modify ICE misconducts 2. The bill was for financing ICE and help it amplify it's bad behaviors 3. When the democrats would not pay for inhumane ICE, the reps told everyone the dems were against every changement.

[wongarsu]

If a big client hurts your reputation, goodwill and mindshare and makes hiring more difficult there comes a point where you would have to argue that executives have the obligation to shareholders to turn those harmful clients away.

[microcolonel]

> makes hiring more difficult

I wouldn't want to work at a company that would so readily bend over for this hysterical mob, it kinda cuts both ways.

[kalia35]

...Or maybe refusing to work with an inhumane administration is the ethical thing to do because it raises awareness of the public which is the only way to modify an administration's bad behavior ?

Enforcement is supposed to serve the public and the public has the right to tell the enforcement when the job is badly done. It is very different than to be against enforcement.

Lastly, I hope that sone shareholders may want to associate themselves with humanistics valors because they are human being too.