Tech insiders are calling on CEOs to speak out against ICE after Alex Pretti’s murder

More than 450 tech workers from companies like Google, Meta, OpenAI, Amazon, and Salesforce signed a letter urging their executives to contact the White House and ask US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to leave US cities.

“For months, Trump has sent federal agents into our cities to criminalize us, our neighbors, our friends, our colleagues, and our family members,” the open letter from IceOut.Tech said. “From Minneapolis to Los Angeles to Chicago, we have seen armed and masked thugs commit reckless acts of violence, kidnapping, terror and cruelty with no end in sight.”

Minneapolis became the focal point of a large-scale federal immigration operation, employing tactics so intense that many described it as a military occupation. The operation featured confrontations between federal agents and community members protesting the raids, with law enforcement deploying indiscriminate crowd control tactics, including pepper spray, tear gas, rubber bullets and sound cannons.

The message from those in the tech industry continues: “This cannot continue, and we know the tech industry can make a difference.” “When Trump threatened to send the National Guard to San Francisco in October, tech industry leaders called the White House. It worked: Trump backed down.”

The campaign among tech workers began after Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents shot and killed US citizen Rene Judd in Minneapolis three weeks ago, and intensified over the weekend after Border Patrol agents shot and killed Alex Peretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse at a Minneapolis VA hospital.

The letter’s organizers did not reveal their names, and many of the letter’s signatories did so anonymously for fear of retaliation. TechCrunch has reached out for more information.

A number of tech leaders have already spoken out against the federal actions in Minneapolis. Reed Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, said the way ICE operates is “horrible for people,” and Vinod Khosla, founder of Khosla Ventures, described the current action as “macho ICE vigilantes running their businesses like crap backed by less conscientious management.” Jeff Dean, chief scientist at Google DeepMind, called on “everyone, regardless of political affiliation” to denounce the escalation of violence. OpenAI’s head of global business, James Dyett, criticized the industry’s silence, posting on X that “the anger from tech leaders over the wealth tax is far greater than the anger of masked ICE agents terrorizing communities.”

Signal CEO Meredith Whitaker bemoaned that masked agents “are executing people in the streets and powerful leaders are openly lying to cover them up. To everyone in my industry who has ever claimed to value freedom — rely on the courage of your convictions and stand up.”

However, many of the most powerful figures in tech leaders have not only been largely silent about opposing the Trump administration’s directives, but have actively tried to curry favor with the president. Amazon owner Jeff Bezos, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg all attended President Trump’s inauguration and donated to the inauguration fund either personally or through their companies. No one has spoken publicly about the intensification of ICE raids.

OpenAI President Greg Brockman and his wife, Anna, are also prominent donors to causes and candidates associated with President Trump, and have declined to speak publicly. In keeping with his anti-immigration views, Elon Musk has actively supported ICE operations, calling the protesters “pure evil.”

The letter also calls on the tech CEOs to cancel all of the company’s contracts with ICE — a potentially costly request, since many tech companies currently have contracts with ICE. Palantir is one of ICE’s most important technology partners. Last year, the company was awarded a $30 million contract to build a new AI-based monitoring platform called ImmigrationOS. Last year, facial recognition company Clearview AI signed a contract to supply facial matching technology to ICE. Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, and Oracle also provide cloud infrastructure for DHS and ICE, as well as IT services.

TechCrunch has reached out to the companies for comment.

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