Google recalled about 100 employees working overseas in order to shelter them from President Trump’s executive order denying visas to individuals from countries with significant terrorist networks.
“Google has recalled around 100 of its affected staff from overseas,” according to a report Saturday.
“The technology sector relies heavily on highly skilled and well-paid workers from overseas on H1-B visas. If there’s a risk, however small, that that brainpower could be restricted in some way or scare off others who may feel unwelcome, the big tech companies may have to rethink where they place their key staff in future,” the BBC reported.
Trump ordered a halt of visas for individuals from six countries — Iran, Sudan, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Yemen, and Iraq — affected by significant terrorist organizations. The subject of travel from the Middle East was a major campaign issue, particularly after the revelation that one of the San Bernardino shooters was a Pakistani native who had traveled to the United States in 2014. The attack stoked fears on the right that the federal government can’t conduct adequate background checks in order to screen out would-be terrorists.
“It’s actually based on a country’s history: exporting into training and harboring terrorists,” White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said Friday. “The president said this executive order is meant to protect our nation from terrorists. In effect in means that those countries that have this history [of exporting terrorism].”
The order caused people to be barred from entering the country within hours of being issued. Two individuals from Iraq — one a former interpreter for the U.S. army, the other the husband of a woman who worked with American contractors — were detained at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York.
Democrats denounced the move, which was coupled with paring back the refugee program, as well. “Tears are running down the cheeks of the Statue of Liberty tonight as a grand tradition of America, welcoming immigrants, that has existed since America was founded has been stomped upon,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York, said in a statement.
