Over the weekend, Tim Cook shared a post on Twitter, showing his support for the 250 of his Apple colleagues who entered the United States illegally as children — who currently benefit from Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) protection. Cook described how these employees, “deserve our respect as equals.”
His tweet comes as President Donald Trump is reportedly set to scrap the legal protections offered under the DACA program, which keeps close to 800,000 young men and women safe from deportation.
Standing with his employees
250 of my Apple coworkers are #Dreamers. I stand with them. They deserve our respect as equals and a solution rooted in American values.
— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) September 3, 2017
Cook’s tweet comes days after he joined the CEOs of Microsoft, Amazon, HP, Google, and others in signing a letter from immigration reform group FWD.us.
The letter argued that immigration is vital to the economy, and that people protected by DACA help “grow and create jobs” in the United States. It also stated that at least 72 percent of the top 25 Fortune 500 companies count DACA recipients among their employees.
This isn’t the first time Tim Cook has opposed President Trump on immigration. Earlier this year, Cook also spoke out about Trump’s controversial executive order temporarily bars people from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States, as well as halting all immigration for 120 days. In the aftermath, Cook said that Apple employees affected by the ban would be able to draw on Apple’s expert HR, legal and security teams.