Tech Workers Coalition

By Gary Levi, Tech Workers Coalition

Over the last few weeks, following the murders of Renée Good and Alex Pretti, and in the midst of the ongoing occupation in Minneapolis, tech workers have begun to organize against ICE, and particularly the support and complicity of their companies in these attacks on not only immigrants, but the rights and lives of all workers. Along with the recent https://iceout.tech open letter calling on big tech to cancel contracts with ICE (signed by many executives as well as rank and file workers) , over a thousand google workers have signed a letter (https://www.googlers-against-ice.com) calling for divestment from partnership with ICE, and over a thousand salesforce employees have likewise called on their CEO to drop contracts with ICE. Tech has an important role in the vast infrastructure of monitoring and logistics that fuels the deportation and repression machine. As tech workers we have both an ability and a responsibility to fight against it.

The recent protest efforts are very similar to campaigns organized in the first Trump presidency. Then, the “Tech Won’t Build It” and “No Tech for ICE” slogans and campaigns galvanized thousands of workers who submitted letters to CEOs and called on their companies to cut contracts with ICE. Despite significant media coverage and mass public support, these campaigns had no effect on corporate policy, and quietly dissolved over time. Although this wave of organizing fell short of winning demands, it contributed to a legacy of organizing which played an important role in future organizing efforts that won material gains, from union campaigns to Palestine activism and beyond. How can we do things differently this time?

Here I want to provide some personal reflections on this history, and suggest some tactical considerations. The perspective presented here is not that of TWC as a whole, and the tactics touched on are not a call for groups to wholly adopt any one strategic perspective. Rather, each individual workplace campaign will have the most knowledge of its own conditions, the current concerns of those they hope to reach, how management will respond, how they will unite their coworkers, and what horizons they set their sights on. We will need more ongoing discussion and critical reflection across activists as we proceed, and this article is not intended to be a final word, but just part of a continued conversation. Further, this discussion will specifically be about workplace campaigns at large tech companies, not consumer boycott campaigns, nor even workplace campaigns in other industries such as hospitality or retail, in which other targets and tactics may be appropriate.

The most important reason why the No Tech for ICE campaigns of the first Trump administration dried up is that Trump ceased to be president. When Biden carried on Trump’s deportation policies (which were only slightly different from Obama’s deportation policies) and even intensified them, people no longer noticed or were outraged as they had been. In 2020, as is often the case, the Democratic party successfully demobilized mass protest and outrage while maintaining reactionary policies. While we cannot control this element of public sentiment, we can try to organize with clear analysis and open eyes, to prevent perhaps quite as many people from being suckered again.

But why were we not able to make more wins even before Biden demobilized immigration protests? One aspect is a naivete about the role of tech giants and tech CEOs – many still believed in the self-professed “values” of Silicon Valley, which at the time were supposedly liberal and progressive. This meant that there was hope that reasonable, polite asks made on shared values could effect change, rather than hard-nosed oppositional pressure. Now, after the crypto bubble, now in the AI bubble, following waves of layoffs, and with many tech billionaires turned to racism, nationalism, and embrace of Trump in pursuit of Department of Defense contracts, the bloom is fully off the rose, and it is possible we can organize from the understanding that militancy and escalation will be necessary.

I want to suggest a final tactical consideration. ICE contracts are very hard to eliminate – even more than divesting from Israel. These are contracts with the U.S. government, the state that controls, taxes, and regulates most tech companies we organize within. Furthermore, often U.S. government business as a whole constitutes a large part of many corporate revenue streams. Last time around, and from what we have heard, today too, CEOs can make a very effective argument that their “hands are tied” and it is impossible to cancel ICE contracts without losing all U.S. government business, and hence imperiling the finances of their companies. It is not clear how true or realistic this concern is – but it does drive corporate decision making and can be massively demobilizing for those involved in anti-ICE organizing. We can’t let ourselves be swayed from our goals, but we must find ways that allow us to build organizational strength and claim victories even in the face of these obstructions.

One approach we can take is to expand our list of targets, and seek to also exert pressure through more immediately vulnerable contracts than those directly with ICE. In particular, there are many private companies which are deeply tied to ICE and the military-industrial complex, which have a compelling story of why they are as evil or complicit as ICE itself, and where contracts and services can then be denied without CEOs being able to invoke the risk to government contracts as a whole.

A flagship company for this approach is Palantir, which is tied to the ghoulish far-right Peter Thiel, widely known and hated, fully supportive of and massively profiting from the current wave of ICE repression. An existing campaign, Purge Palantir, has already made some inroads in public consciousness, although currently it targets community pressure and political donations, rather than worker action impacting our own employers.

It is quite possible that a campaign might not be able to sever all ICE contracts at a company but could nonetheless cancel provision of cloud services or other contracts specifically to Palantir. Further, Palantir is only the most well known of the many companies profiting from ICE – not even the most well compensated. For fiscal year 2025 ICE contracts, the total outlayed cash to Palantir is about $660 million. This makes it only the thirteenth largest contractor to ICE.

Here is a list of my calculation of the top twenty contractors (data sourced from the custom award data at usaspending.gov):

CSI AVIATION, INC	$9,707,485,430
THE GEO GROUP, INC.	$5,370,665,928
MVM, INC.	$2,068,344,189
CORECIVIC, INC.	$2,028,372,809
B.I. INCORPORATED	$1,672,887,893
INSERSO CORPORATION	$1,484,191,479
AKIMA INFRASTRUCTURE PROTECTION LLC	$1,241,684,376
AKIMA GLOBAL SERVICES, LLC	$1,045,991,175
PARAGON PROFESSIONAL SERVICES LLC	$1,044,183,289
STEAMPUNK, INC.	$819,579,403
WIDEPOINT INTEGRATED SOLUTIONS CORP	$691,184,173
PALANTIR TECHNOLOGIES INC.	$659,800,540
DELOITTE CONSULTING LLP	$610,394,065
CACI, INC. - FEDERAL	$591,706,852
G4S SECURE SOLUTIONS (USA) INC.	$556,405,484
CACI NSS, LLC	$421,025,885
MANAGEMENT & TRAINING CORPORATION	$420,212,896
CLASSIC AIR CHARTER INC.	$379,336,739
ITC FEDERAL, LLC	$347,138,958

Who are these companies?

At the top of the list is CSI Aviation, famous for providing deportation flights, many of which have been, by all accounts, entirely illegal. Also providing similar services is Classic Air Charter. Both are purely private concerns, unlike Avelo airlines, a small commercial carrier, which in a significant victory for anti-ICE protestors, dropped its ICE contract in January.

Another group of contractors are those that run private prisons – Geo Group, CoreCivic and Management & Training Corporation. The former two are targets of the Boycott Citizens campaign, which has targeted Citizens’ Bank for providing them loans and other financial services.

Also notable are a large collection of companies that provide essentially mercenary services – private guards and security, as well as prisoner transportation. This includes MVM, Akima Infrastructure, Paragon Professional and G4S.

Next are companies that provide IT support, infrastructure and services, including network security and data management. This includes Inserso, Akima Global, Steampunk, Widepoint, Deloitte, CACI NSS and ITC.

Of course there is also Palantir, which like CACI Inc, is in the business of providing all three of technology infrastructure, data on private citizens, and analysis.

And finally, there is B.I. Incorporated, which provides electronic monitoring.

All these companies, and many others as well, would constitute good targets for anti-ICE activism. They are mainly not large general purpose companies that happen to have some ICE contracts. These are largely companies that are fully “outsourced” parts of the policing and military apparatus. They provide mercenaries, bounty hunters, prisons and guards, and ICE could not operate without them. Such companies, like ICE, should not exist – and for our organizing purposes, they have the advantage of not being the U.S. government itself. We can research our own companies’ connections to these and other major ICE contractors and subcontractors, and initiate worker-first mass organizing campaigns to cut these ties. This alone won’t end the ICE onslaught – but neither would cutting contracts with ICE. Making it more difficult and expensive for ICE to carry out its terrorism is a worthy goal, but to turn the tide back will require a social mobilization broader than wins at individual workplaces. Political problems have to be solved at the level of high politics. However, it would build our organizing apparatus and consciousness, strengthen our power, provide inspiration for the broader struggle, and flex our muscles at a time when every blow counts. And if we think critically about the leverage we have, in our own workplaces, we have a shot at winning something that makes a difference.

Here we have suggested one set of considerations and one source of targets. But the most important thing is to start with talking to your coworkers, researching and planning together, and taking concrete steps to get organized.