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Human cloud firms Uber and Lyft respond to presidential immigration order

January 30, 2017

Human cloud firms Uber and Lyft responded to the immigration order by President Donald Trump. Lyft co-founder John Zimmer and Logan Green wrote in a blog post Sunday they are donating $1 million over the next four years to the ACLU to defend the constitution.

“This weekend, Trump closed the country's borders to refugees, immigrants, and even documented residents from around the world based on their country of origin,” according to the post. “Banning people of a particular faith or creed, race or identity, sexuality or ethnicity, from entering the US is antithetical to both Lyft’s and our nation’s core values.”

Uber pledged to create a $3 million legal defense fund to help drivers with immigration and translation service in a blog post on Sunday. It also reported it will provide legal support for divers trying to get back in to the US and compensate those drivers for lost earnings.

Uber CEO Travis Kalanick also wrote in an earlier post on Saturday that the company’s “People Ops’ reached out to a dozen or so employees impacted by the ban and it was working to identify affected drivers.

“While every government has their own immigration controls, allowing people from all around the world to come here and make America their home has largely been the US’s policy since its founding,” Kalanick wrote in Saturday’s post. “That means this ban will impact many innocent people — an issue that I will raise this coming Friday when I go to Washington for President Trump’s first business advisory group meeting.”

Uber had taken criticism for continuing to operate at JFK Airport in New York after taxi drivers organized a one-hour strike against the ban.

Outside of the human cloud, concerns had been raised the order could impact the doctor shortage, and several technology executives raised concerns as well about the impact on their industry.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella addressed his concerns in a post on LinkedIn.