Tech Companies and the Ban: Beyond the Headlines

Ninety-seven high-tech companies filed a “friend of the court” brief in the Washington case involving the (travel) (Muslim) ban. I’ve used parentheses here because this post is not an opinion piece—it is meant to be informational. Trump calls it a travel ban; many others say it is a religious ban.

The roster of companies appears below. Apple, Google, Uber—even Twitter— are together on this brief.

The essence of their argument is in the quoted red text.

My prediction? The Ninth Circuit will affirm the district court, meaning that the order will be stayed. The Supreme Court will expedite the review process. My very uncertain prediction is a 5-3 vote to overturn parts of the executive order—likely on procedural grounds. I think the Court will avoid a sweeping ruling that green-lights or red-lights President Trump. I am guessing (that’s all it is) that Justice Kennedy will be the key vote.

One more point: Win or lose, these tech companies are deeply troubled by the anti-immigration rhetoric and stance of Donald Trump, Steve Bannon and the administration. They will begin the process of relocating parts of their physically-sited headquarters and locations to other nations, e.g., Canada, Germany, and Australia.

Now, their legal arguments and names:

The Executive Order Is Unlawful;

The Order discriminates on the basis of nationality

The Order exercises discretion arbitrarily.

The Order represents a significant departure from the principles of fairness and predictability that have governed the immigration system of the United States for more than fifty years—and the Order inflicts significant harm on American business, innovation, and growth as a result.

The Order makes it more difficult and expensive for U.S. companies to recruit, hire, and retain some of the world’s best employees.

It disrupts ongoing business operations. And it threatens companies’ ability to attract talent, business, and investment to the United States.

AdRoll, Inc.

Aeris Communications, Inc.

Airbnb, Inc.

AltSchool, PBC

Ancestry.com, LLC 


Appboy, Inc. 


Apple Inc. 


AppNexus Inc. 


Asana, Inc. 


Atlassian Corp Plc 


Autodesk, Inc. 


Automattic Inc. 


Box, Inc. 


Brightcove Inc. 


Brit + Co 


CareZone Inc. 


Castlight Health 


Checkr, Inc. 


Chobani, LLC 


Citrix Systems, Inc. 


Cloudera, Inc. 


Cloudflare, Inc. 


Copia Institute 


DocuSign, Inc. 


DoorDash, Inc. 


Dropbox, Inc. 


Dynatrace LLC 


eBay Inc. 


Engine Advocacy 


Etsy Inc. 


Facebook, Inc. 


Fastly, Inc. 


Flipboard, Inc. 


Foursquare Labs, Inc. 


Fuze, Inc. 


General Assembly 


GitHub 


Glassdoor, Inc. 


Google Inc. 


GoPro, Inc. 


Harmonic Inc. 


Hipmunk, Inc. 


Indiegogo, Inc. 


Intel Corporation 


JAND, Inc. d/b/a Warby Parker 


Kargo Global, Inc. 


Kickstarter, PBC 


KIND, LLC 


Knotel 


Levi Strauss & Co. 


LinkedIn Corporation 


Lithium Technologies, Inc. 


Lyft, Inc. 


Mapbox, Inc. 


Maplebear Inc. d/b/a Instacart 


Marin Software Incorporated 


Medallia, Inc. 


A Medium Corporation 


Meetup, Inc. 


Microsoft Corporation 


Motivate International Inc. 


Mozilla Corporation 


Netflix, Inc. 


NETGEAR, Inc. 


NewsCred, Inc. 


Patreon, Inc. 


PayPal Holdings, Inc. 


Pinterest, Inc. 


Quora, Inc. 


Reddit, Inc. 


Rocket Fuel Inc. 


SaaStr Inc. 


Salesforce.com, Inc. 


Scopely, Inc. 


Shutterstock, Inc. 


Snap Inc. 


Spokeo, Inc. 


Spotify USA Inc. 


Square, Inc. 


Squarespace, Inc. 


Strava, Inc. 


Stripe, Inc. 


SurveyMonkey Inc. 


TaskRabbit, Inc 


Tech:NYC 


Thumbtack, Inc. 


Turn Inc. 


Twilio Inc. 


Twitter Inc. 


Turn Inc. 


Uber Technologies, Inc. 


Via 


Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 


Workday 


Y Combinator Management, LLC 


Yelp Inc. 


Zynga Inc. 
 MG