back to article Microsoft goes to bat for Dreamers: Windows giant sues Uncle Sam to block staff deportations

Microsoft is suing the US government to prevent the deportation of immigrants – including at least 45 of its own staffers – who are in America under the now-dying DACA program. The Redmond giant has signed on to a lawsuit filed by Princeton University on behalf of one of its students seeking an injunction against the …

  1. inmypjs Silver badge

    declaring "the Dreamers are part of our nation's fabric. They belong here."

    WTF does Microsoft think it is doing stealing child labour from Mexico?

    In most places is it called trafficking and illegal and when perpetrators are caught the trafficked are repatriated to where they really do belong.

    1. Dan 55 Silver badge

      Re: declaring "the Dreamers are part of our nation's fabric. They belong here."

      Microsoft sent child catcher vans into Mexico and smuggled children through the border? The bastards!

    2. bombastic bob Silver badge
      Megaphone

      Re: declaring "the Dreamers are part of our nation's fabric. They belong here."

      "Microsoft is suing the US government to prevent the deportation of immigrants"

      Should instead be...

      "Microsoft is suing the US government to prevent the deportation of ***_I_L_L_E_G_A_L_*** immigrants"

      There, I! FIXED! IT! FOR! YOU!!! <-- shouted so that you can hear it from the 'cheap seats'

      What! *FORNICATING*! Part! Of! ***ILLEGAL***! Do! They! NOT! Understand!!!???

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Opportunity to live / contribute to the 'Land of the Free'

    Any chance of a Timeout on using this phase? Can't be said w/o a smirk:

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-01/americans-are-officially-freaking-out

  3. the Jim bloke
    Thumb Down

    Microsoft Vs Trump administration

    Can we make this a gladiatorial cage match ?

    2 sides enter.... no one gets out !

    1. Chemical Bob

      Re: Microsoft Vs Trump administration

      Oh, if only it would work that way....

  4. veti Silver badge

    Because Microsoft has no employees outside the USA?

    Let them be deported. Microsoft can show its support by continuing to employ them in whatever country they're deported to.

    Deport the people, deport their jobs. It's only fair. And it would also help to make Trump look like a cupid stunt, which is always a plus.

    1. P. Lee

      Re: Because Microsoft has no employees outside the USA?

      Does anyone read the news or do they just spew blind hate for Trump?

      https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/14/us/politics/trump-daca-dreamers.html

      Trump supports the Dreamers staying and is pushing for legislation to allow them to do so, which is required. Obama exceeded his authority in saying they could stay without passing any legislation.

      Don't get me wrong, I think Trump is an idiot, but he doesn't deserve the irrational and irrelevant hate being directed at him.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        FAIL

        Re: Because Microsoft has no employees outside the USA?

        Read the article:

        "....from deportation if it were accompanied by a “massive” border security upgrade."

        That's usually called blackmail and in my book makes him even more of a scumbag than before. Hey lets use children as a bargaining tool.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Because Microsoft has no employees outside the USA?

        President Obama issued an executive order because the Republicans who controlled both houses refused to even bring the measure up for a vote. Those same Republicans control the actual legislative process today, so good luck getting anything passed now. They can't pass any of their core promises (or their actual responsibilities like budget, debt limit, etc.), so adding in something that is unpopular to their racist base is unlikely to happen.

        And Trump has been both for and against the issue - it really depends who asks him, how much diet coke he has drunk, and which way the wind is blowing. He doesn't know himself what he believes.

        He certainly was against executive orders when Obama made them, but every one of his limited achievements so far has been by the same method because Congress can't find its ass with both hands.

      3. bombastic bob Silver badge
        Devil

        Re: Because Microsoft has no employees outside the USA?

        "Don't get me wrong, I think Trump is an idiot, but he doesn't deserve the irrational and irrelevant hate being directed at him."

        Your disclaimer still got you a 2:1 downvote to upvote ratio [so far]. I gave you an up vote for everything up to and excluding that part.

  5. Malcolm Weir Silver badge

    Optional

    The reality is that Dreamers are people who have grown up and become of age in the USA. They (foolishly) believed the US government's DACA program, and now because Donald J Trump has minuscule "hands" and wants to (again) show what a putrescent scumbag he really is and (try to) score points off the guy who created the program (a person, not coincidentally, that The Dumbald spent years claiming was illegitimate), they face being deported to a place to which, generally, they have no ties and fewer prospects.

    Yes, it would be lovely *if* Microsoft (et al) did guarantee a job in another country if they get deported, but that's just a job. What about their social lives? What about partners and spouses and significant others? Even Donny-boy Drumpf has acknowledged their value to the country.

    I'd be hugely amused if Microsoft implemented a system whereby any customer of MS Federal Sales had to provide reams of documentation and evidence of eligibility in order to activate their software.... and if they failed the annual refresher in any way, lock down their system until their eligibility was proven...

    1. veti Silver badge

      Re: Optional

      It's easy (so easy) to rail against the Trump, but he's really not to blame for this. The A-Gs of several states were already in the process of taking legal action against DACA, and most informed opinion said that it had basically no defense.

      I'm not completely heartless, but I do believe in rules. And if the rules are stupid and heartless (which they are, completely guilty on both counts), the correct answer is to f---ing fix them. Not for a president to unilaterally declare that he's going to ignore them. That's - just wrong. It's unstable, doesn't fix the underlying issue (which is why the next idiot can reverse it); it ignores the constitution; it brings the law into disrepute; it sets a terrible precedent; and worst of all it lets Congress off the hook - giving them the freedom to squander their time on meaningless symbolic wankery, which pretty much sums up everything they've done this century.

      1. Lysenko

        Re: Optional

        It's easy (so easy) to rail against the Trump, but he's really not to blame for this.

        Exactly. If you don't trust the Orange Menace then you certainly don't want to be validating: "If the legislature won't legislate then the Executive will" which is what underpinned DACA. Congress is supposed to resolve matters like this, not the Presidency or the Judiciary.

        The fact that the US legislature is hopelessly dysfunctional is a problem the electorate have to resolve and allowing Executive (or Judicial) overreach to paper over the cracks erodes separation of powers in the direction of dictatorship. Whatever your position on the intent of DACA the fact remains that, if you value constitutional democracy, the program should never have been permitted under Executive authority alone and the courts should toss this challenge as prima facie ultra vires.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          How can the electorate resolve the dysfunctional legislature?

          It is now so dysfunctional that a republican majority can't even repeal Obamacare despite making that a core promise for seven years. It isn't even clear they will be able to pass tax cuts, which has been a constant theme of theirs for decades. The chances may have been reduced since Trump stuck his fat nose in telling them they should include repeal of some parts of Obamacare in it, which probably dooms it in the senate even if it squeaks by the house. That orange turd is his own worst enemy.

          The democrats were successful at passing a few things (like Obamacare) when they had the majority, but the democrats look to be following the path of republicans with a civil war brewing inside their ranks, so even if they take back control of congress and got a democratic president in 2020 they probably won't be able to pass anything either.

          Both parties claim to hate executive orders, but somehow only seem to speak up when the other party is in the white house. But since cooperation across the aisle is seen as weakness and grounds for being removed in a primary by your own party, that may be the only way left to govern.

          1. Lysenko

            Re: How can the electorate resolve the dysfunctional legislature?

            The legislature is dysfunctional because the electorate is hopelessly polarised and has been complacent/complicit for decades in allowing rampant gerrymandering. Applying a rational (i.e. politically independent) electoral constituency map resolves the problem at a stroke - but of course, no-one with power is going to implement something like that. It's too late. People were told (still are, largely) that the framers were geniuses and the constitution is such a work of brilliance that it will secure functioning republican democracy all by itself for eternity with no further thought from the electorate. They weren't, it isn't and it won't.

            The USA has been on a Czechoslovakia trajectory since Reagan, if not before. Either someone with enough charisma rams through some constitutional amendments in the next couple of decades or the end game will be the same. Possibly that is inevitable anyway. There is no other country of comparable size that holds together with such a constitutionally crippled central government.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: How can the electorate resolve the dysfunctional legislature?

              The USA has been on a Czechoslovakia trajectory since Reagan, if not before.

              If only that were the case. According to my Czech and Slovak friends, the Czechoslovak divorce was an amicable separation - a rare example in modern history, where the two sides have agreed to spit, had no major disputes over the separation, and both ended up benefiting from it.

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: Amicable separation?

                When folks in Texas clamor for secession, here in New Jersey a typical response is, "Works for me."

                1. Fatman

                  Re: Amicable separation?

                  <quote>When folks in Texas clamor for secession, here in New Jersey a typical response is, "Works for me."</quote>

                  Perhaps you have not noticed the recent reporting about Russian backed 'troll accounts' spouting this bullshit.

                  Please step back a bit and take a look at the Bigger Picture:

                  WHO would benefit from polarization and want to sow discord in the USofA???

                  Putin.

                  Perhaps you have forgotten about: Divide and Conquer?????

                  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divide_and_rule

    2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: Optional

      "I'd be hugely amused if Microsoft implemented a system whereby any customer of MS Federal Sales had to provide reams of documentation and evidence of eligibility in order to activate their software"

      And also prove that neither their staff nor contractors were running cracked hookey versions at home.

  6. alpacaherder
    Mushroom

    Posturing

    The current global security situation is not a good one for concentrating talent into big clumps easily targeted by ICBMs. Planting seedcorn elsewhere is a valuable long-term investment when a wacky guy with gout can apparently make Silicon Valley a radioactive wasteland on fairly short notice. Let the DACA recipients go from this territory but expand your global workforce. The need for fallbacks outside North America grows.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Posturing

      ... when a wacky guy with gout can apparently make Silicon Valley a radioactive wasteland on fairly short notice ...

      Hell, I didn't know Donald has gout. Piles I grant you - these are pretty obvious and expected at his age - but this is news.

      1. alpacaherder
        Coat

        Re: Posturing

        But I’ve seen the lifestyles of the DPRK’s rich & famous too much where they talked about Dear Leader’s treatment plan...

        I’ll get my coat...

  7. x 7

    Why does Trump hate immigrants?

    His wives are all immigrants, do they treat him badly or something?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      How many of his wives were here illegally?

      It's not about immigrants, it's about condoning illegal actions that bypass laws and safeguards.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        The latest one could not immigrate to the US using his proposed standards for merit based immigrants as she had no special skills. Well, except for the ones she used when she illegally worked as a "model" outside the bounds of her visa in the 90's

  8. naive

    These mega corporations just want cheap labor.....

    to enhance "shareholder value"

    As if MS, or any US company led by a CEO worth multiple billion dollars, cares about immigrants.

    They just want to be able to do global cherry picking, in order to get the best for the least amount of money, and make US workers compete with with the salaries paid in 3th world countries.

    These stories are just liberal crocodile tears.

    And it is simple: If one makes and sells things in the US, employ Americans, or just sod off to the dump where you get your employees from.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: These mega corporations just want cheap labor.....

      I don't normally get involved in these USian political mud fights, but if MS wanted cheap labour woudn't they just let them be deported and then hire them back at the going rate for Mexico or whereever, rather than pay the higher rates they will be getting in the US?

    2. HausWolf

      Re: These mega corporations just want cheap labor.....

      This was too easy...

      Bet you told the donald to sod off as well with his 70 odd foreign laborers at his Mar A Lago resort or his "premium" line of clothing.. none of which is made in the USA.

    3. bombastic bob Silver badge
      Unhappy

      Re: These mega corporations just want cheap labor.....

      "As if MS, or any US company led by a CEO worth multiple billion dollars, cares about immigrants."

      this is why the chamber of commerce and "washington establishment" SUPPORT things like 'amnesty' for illegal immigrants, because it waters down the "potential employee" pool with sneak-ins.

      in other words, it helps maintain the divide between "haves" and "have nots", like so many other things that are (deliberately) done in gummint these days.

      Never trust a politician who claims he wants to HELP you. Maybe vote for him, but watch him carefully, for every politician must put a hand out and get money put into it in order to become elected. Those who put a LOT of money in [i.e. "the rich"] have a lot more say-so about what's going to happen down the road. Mrs. Clinton was trying to be more covert about it, and included "furriners" and illegal "charitable" contributions in a money laundering scheme for this very purpose. It's a corrupt business, politics, and always has been from what I can gather. it's just that people stopped paying attention at some point, and allowed themselves to be herded like sheeple into voting for the candidate of THEIR choice every couple of years.

      So yeah, expect YOUR taxes to go up, even if they say they will go down, in order to "keep you in your place". Your expenses will go up because no new houses/apartments will be built, and any 'rent control' will keep them 'barely affordable'. All of your money will go into your monthly bills [why does BILL get so much of my money] and if you move to get better wages, you KNOW the expenses will be "better" (i.e. higher) too, to compensate.

      The only way this will ever change is if politics becomes UN-corrupt.

      yeah, good luck with THAT.

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