Google is pledging $4M to support U.S. immigration organizations
Jon Russell	@jonrussell / 3 years
Google has created its largest humanitarian fund to date in response to President Trump's executive order on immigration.
The search giant's newest 'crisis campaign' is $4 million in size. The money will be donated to four organizations: the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC), International Rescue Committee (IRC) and UN High Commissioner for Refugees / UN Refugee Agency (UNHR), a source at the company told TechCrunch.
Google said that half of the funds will come direct from the company, with the other half coming from employees. So, essentially, it is committing to match donations to these organizations up to the tune of $2 million. The company said it has given more than $16 million to humanitarian causes since 2015, including educational programs and providing internet access at camps, but this fund is its largest single effort to date.
The initiative was announced in a company-wide memo that was first reported on by USA Today. It comes as a number of notable tech industry figures pledged to match donations to the ACLU, which successfully challenged Trump's order to free affected travelers who had been detained at U.S. airports.
Elsewhere, an array of top tech firms — including Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and Google — have spoken out against the travel ban.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai, himself an immigrant to the U.S. from India, told his company's staff that he was "upset about the impact of this order," specifically how it relates to restrictions placed upon "Googlers and their families." He added that the move would impose "barriers to bringing great talent to the U.S."
Acknowledging Google's international roster of staff, Pichai said it was "painful to see the personal cost of this executive order on our colleagues" in the memo. USA Today reports that Google has at least 187 staff who could be affected by the executive order, which is related to Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen — all of which are predominantly Muslim countries.