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A dozen people Tuesday morning, accompanied by a 14-pound and 800-pound cage gathered in downtown San Francisco to protest Salesforce's contract with US Customs and Border Patrol, the agency's Department of Homeland Security responsible for enforcing zero immigration tolerance of Trump administration policy.
This is the first day of Dreamforce, the annual Salesforce users conference, which attracts some 200,000 people. The protesters claim Salesforce, who signed an agreement with the CPB in March, is complicit in CBP's actions and should be held accountable.
"Salesforce has a moral and ethical obligation to terminate this contract," a protester shouted.
The sign was stuck to the front of the cage – a mock-up of those that would have been used in CBP facilities to house separated children from migrant families – read "Salesforce-powered Detention Center".
"It's hard to miss an 800-pound cage that's on the street," TechCrunch Jelani Drew, the event's main organizer and activist of the non-profit advocacy group Fight for the Future, told Reuters. "They had to watch and that was the goal."
1800 families were separated at the US-Mexico border from October 2016 to February this year, by Reuters. And another 2,342 children were separated from 2,206 parents between May 5 and June 9, according to Vox.
At the end of June, President Donald Trump signed a decree to end the separation of families, but the zero tolerance policy, which forces anyone entering the United States illegally to be prosecuted, remains.
Marc Benioff, General Manager of Salesforce, who has a reputation for defending liberal causes and politics, said the agreement with CBP does not imply border policies between CBP and Mexico. Instead, CBP uses some Salesforce Cloud tools, specifically Salesforce Analytics, Community Cloud, and Service Cloud, to strengthen its recruiting process and to "manage border activities."
When asked to comment, Salesforce told TechCrunch that the cloud company respected the right to demonstrate and told us of Benioff's tweets, which reaffirm that the company does not have the right to demonstrate. does not agree with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). the contract is not related to family separation.
The tweet, published in July, was a response to a petition signed by 650 Salesforce employees who challenged the CBP contract, particularly the use of Salesforce Service Cloud by CBP to manage the border business.
"We can not give up the responsibility of using the technology we create, especially when we have reason to believe that it is being used to help practices so irreconcilable with our values," wrote the employees. "These values are often abstract and it is easier to respect them when they are not tested. They are tested now.
In addition to his tweet, Benioff wrote in a memo to the employees that he was "opposed to the separation of children from their families on the border".
"It's immoral. I have personally supported financially legal groups helping families on the border. I also wrote to the White House to encourage them to put an end to this horrible situation. "
Co-CEO of Salesforce US Keith Block said the company would give a million dollars to organizations helping separated families at the US border. and that Salesforce would match employee donations. In his tweet, he did not specify the organizations that the company would support.
Today, similar blockage taken to Twitter San Francisco Chronicle reports San Francisco and Oakland school districts will receive $ 15.5 million, Hamilton families, Larkin Street Youth Services and San Francisco Food Bank to receive $ 2 million and San Francisco Park $ 500,000 alliance.
Today's event was organized by Fight for the Future, the Color of Change, the Demand for Progress, Advocacy and Dissent, Mijente, Presente.org, RAICES and Sum of Us. RAICES, the Center for refugees and immigrants for education and legal services, recently refused a $ 250,000 donation from Salesforce because of his contract with CBP.
Benioff has contacted RAICES Executive Director Jonathan Ryan over the summer to discuss the opposition to Salesforce's deal with CBP, according to a new report from The Guardian. The duo had to speak until Benioff canceled the last minute. "I'm sorry to be a diver right now," Benioff would have written to Ryan.
We contacted RAICES for a comment.
Benioff and Salesforce are part of several large technology companies that have entered into controversial agreements with government agencies. Amazon and Microsoft employees protested their company's contracts with ICE. Google has decided not to renew the Pentagon contract after the resignation of employees to protest the involvement of the research giant in the controversial Project Maven research project.
Jacinta Gonzalez, campaign organizer at Mijente, a national hub for Latinx organizers, told TechCrunch that she and other protesters hope that technology companies will abandon their contracts with CBP and ICE.
"We have been incredibly concerned about the companies, especially the technology companies, that are facilitating the destruction of immigrant communities by ICE and border patrols," said Gonzalez. "It's about continuing to put pressure on these investors and leaders, the technology companies that are making billions at the expense of immigrants. They take advantage of the suffering of immigrants. "
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