As President Trump fulfilled his campaign promise to make America safe again through the issuance of Executive Order 13780 (EO13780) banning immigrants from specific countries in the Middle East which are known incubators of Islamic terrorists, American companies in the technology industry have renewed their protest against EO 13780.
EO 13780 states:
Each of these countries is a state sponsor of terrorism, has been significantly compromised by terrorist organizations, or contains active conflict zones.
Further:
Recent history shows that some of those who have entered the United States through our immigration system have proved to be threats to our national security. Since 2001, hundreds of persons born abroad have been convicted of terrorism-related crimes in the United States. They have included not just persons who came here legally on visas but also individuals who first entered the country as refugees. For example, in January 2013, two Iraqi nationals admitted to the United States as refugees in 2009 were sentenced to 40 years and to life in prison, respectively, for multiple terrorism-related offenses. And in October 2014, a native of Somalia who had been brought to the United States as a child refugee and later became a naturalized United States citizen was sentenced to 30 years in prison for attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction as part of a plot to detonate a bomb at a crowded Christmas-tree-lighting ceremony in Portland, Oregon. The Attorney General has reported to me that more than 300 persons who entered the United States as refugees are currently the subjects of counterterrorism investigations by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.While many have read what CNN has said on EO 13780, it is unlikely that many have actually read President Trump's order. We therefore make it available here:
Executive Order 13780
While mainstream media outlets portray EO 13780 as discriminatory, immoral, unfair, against diversity and claim it will cause economic harm, we must take two points into consideration.
1. The purpose of EO 13780 - to protect the country from foreign nationals who attempt to enter the country for carrying out terrorist acts against our citizens.
2. The source and nature of tech work - Most immigrants in the US who work in the technology field are from countries not named in EO 13780. These countries include China, India and many of the "Eastern Bloc" countries in Europe. While this is not to say that there are no tech workers from Iran or Syria, it is not the numbers that play into the hyperbole projected by the tech companies who are protesting President Trump's Executive Order.
2a. While it is true that the US does rely on immigrant workers in industries besides technology, this begets the question of why the US is not generating enough skilled tech workers to fill today's jobs. Most of the technology in today's world was pioneered in the United States. The first commercial computer, UNIVAC, was built in the US. Other inventions such as UNIX (which later spawned into LINUX, which runs most commercial devices today such as routers, WiFi access points and so on), Microsoft Windows, and the hardware we use, were all developed here in the US by US citizens.
2b. In today's digitally connected world, most tech-related tasks can be accomplished from anywhere in the world. This includes many functions performed by tech workers, be it IT support or software development. These work processes are unaffected by EO 13780.
President Trump's vision is for a secure America that takes care of it's citizens first. EO 13780 accomplishes this by providing a temporary slowdown to existing visa programs. It is not a ban on Muslims or Islam. Nor does it stifle the economy or cause harm to technology related firms.
In conclusion, Richmond Computer condemns the position taken by the companies protesting the President's order. Going forward, we are boycotting all services provided by these companies.
Additionally, Richmond Computer supports Executive Order 13780. We recognize this as a temporary measure for the various Federal agencies to evaluate existing immigration rules and programs and is not discriminatory against anyone's ethnicity or religion. It is a measure taken to evaluate national security and protect our citizens.
May God Bless America
