Workers say Google’s technology is being used to enable surveillance, raids, and violence against civilians.
California: Nearly 1,000 Google employees have signed an open letter urging the company to cut ties with the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), citing contracts with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Workers say Google’s technology is being used to enable surveillance, raids, and violence against civilians.
The petition, organised by staff affiliated with the No Tech for Apartheid campaign, goes beyond earlier calls for transparency. Employees allege that ICE and CBP have carried out paramilitary-style raids in US cities, abducting civilians and targeting protestors and legal observers. They point to recent killings of individuals including Keith Porter, Renee Good, and Alex Pretti, and claim ICE’s detention and deportation system has led to dozens of deaths in custody since mid-2025.
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Workers argue that Google’s cloud services are helping CBP stitch together surveillance systems nationwide, while also powering Palantir’s ImmigrationOS platform used by ICE to track immigrants. They add that Google’s generative AI is being deployed by DHS for “workforce enablement” and “operational efficiency,” while YouTube has hosted ICE recruitment and “self-deport” adverts, and the Play Store has blocked apps designed to help communities monitor ICE activity.
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The letter makes the following demands:
- Acknowledgement of danger: Employees want leadership to recognise the humanitarian crisis created by ICE and CBP raids, likening conditions to the COVID-19 era.
- Emergency Q&A: Staff insist on a live, recorded town hall with executives to discuss DHS and military contracts, rejecting vague responses and AI-generated summaries that obscure key points.
- Worker protection: Employees call for safety measures including flexible work-from-home policies, legal and immigration support, and protections for contract and onsite staff, noting that ICE agents have already visited Google buildings.
- Transparency and red lines: Workers demand full disclosure of Google’s ties to DHS agencies and clear boundaries on how its products can be used, particularly to prevent applications linked to state violence.
Quoting Google Chief Scientist Jeff Dean’s recent statement that “we all bear a collective responsibility to speak up,” employees said they were acting in that spirit. They argue that Google is becoming complicit in violent state repression and must divest from contracts with ICE and CBP.
The letter from Google employees comes in the wake of a broader campaign across the technology sector. Just two weeks earlier, hundreds of staff at companies including Amazon, Microsoft and Meta signed a separate petition urging all major tech firms to end their involvement in supporting the federal immigration crackdown, as per a Reuters report.
Published: 08 Feb 2026, 09:26 pm IST
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