Outside Amazon ’s Seattle headquarters today , objector get wear quite possibly the most terrific Halloween costume conceivable : Jeff Bezos ’s face .
The objector are primarily affiliated with Latinx rights radical Mijente and NWDC Resistance — and the masks , while appropriate for the celebration , are meant as a verbatim “ fuck you ” to Amazon ’s ongoing ( and often successful ) attempts to sell itsquestionably effectivefacial realization software tolocal law enforcementagencies andImmigration and Customs Enforcement(ICE ) . The protesters are also calling out the company ’s many swarm computingcontractswith ICE ’s parent bureau , the Department of Homeland Security .
“ We ’re trying to play up the way that Jeff Bezos is literally crap billions of dollars off Trump ’s schedule , ” Jacinta Gonzalez , a fourth-year campaign labor organizer with Mijente told Gizmodo . “ This [ ICE ] is an agency that across the state people know as a rogue agency , that has no condition for people ’s human rightfield — doesn’t even have consideration for people ’s inbuilt right — and has continued to be much more aggressive in their agenda of separate mob at the border , but also starting to go after the great unwashed who have been in this country for a very longsighted metre . ”
Among those long - full term resident physician of the country being aim is NWDC Resistance militant Maru Mora - Villalpando , who pass public with her undocumented position in 2014 . She believes the agency ’s deportation legal proceeding against her , which began last December , are intended as anintimidation tactic , but she keep on to vocally oppose the expansion of ICE and the technical school companies that ply infrastructure to it .
“ We ’ve seen throughout the years they have been boom their scope to hunt down my communities and other community , ” Mora - Villalpando told Gizmodo . “ What these technical school companies such as Amazon are doing is just facilitating , not one C but yard of numbers to be added to day-after-day custody . ”
An frappe spokesperson tell Gizmodo that Mora - Villalpando “ is in removal proceedings because she has violated the country ’s in-migration laws . ” The interpreter claimed the agency “ does not revenge in any way and observe the rights of all the great unwashed to sound their thought without interference , ” and that any allegation to the contrary would be “ irresponsible , speculative and inaccurate . ”
Earlier this year , a so - called “ techlash ” unfold through major firms likeMicrosoft , Salesforce , Google , andAmazon , when social station - and - file employee discovered their companies were ask in government projection they deemed objectionable . Unlike other tech firms providing assistance to ICE , which were agile to claim their specific involvement was not connect to family breakup at the border , Amazon has largely remained silent on its complicity and the bitterness of its workers .
Bezos — whose stepfather , Miguel , is a Cuban immigrant and the beneficiary of a U.S. visa that he said , was “ given almost freely”—has in person been bullish on technical school companies cozying up to the Pentagon , though the penny-pinching he ’s come up to comment specifically on his fellowship ’s relationship to DHS or ICE was this Zuckerbergian non - opinion given toWired :
“ There are n’t other countries where everybody is trying to get in , ” he pronounce . “ I ’d let them in if it were me . I like ‘ em , I want all of them in . But this is a great body politic and it does need to be defended . ”
A current Amazon employee , who was among the signatory of the June letter of the alphabet and asked to remain anon. to talk freely on the disceptation , carry frustration at Amazon ’s inactiveness and praise the protestation for amplify discontent over the party ’s ongoing affair with DHS and ICE .
“ I ’m beaming the public pressure around this is stay , and I ’m especially glad to have people who have long been on the front - lines of the immigrant rightfulness movement speaking up with us , ” the employee order Gizmodo . “ It ’s unacceptable that after so much employee pushback and external pressure we still actively marketed such a grave engineering science to ICE — I think it really shows that no matter how much Jeff enjoin he cares about immigrants or opposes Trump , when any money is on the communication channel , he ’s ready to compromise all that . It ’s up to all of us to force him to do the right affair here . ”
While it ’s squeamish to have allies on the interior , many of Amazon ’s workers still remain tacit on the number , perhaps for reverence of revenge . Today ’s protesters claim there ’s no ailment - will , whatever their impression . “ We ’re not against the workers at all , ” Mora - Villalpando enounce . “ We know that people are try out to realize a support , and so we ’re really well-chosen that as this campaign is starting to move , we will proceed following the leading of the workers themselves . I think they can evidence us which way they need to go — and I think they believe at the end of the day their employers will listen to them . ”
Amazon did not respond to a postulation for comment by publication time .
AmazonJeff Bezos
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