Submission + - Meta Cafeteria Workers Take on ICE (wired.com)
joshuark writes: Staff at a Meta café in Bellevue, Washington, had made a pact that they would rally together if the Trump administration's immigration crackdown affected any one of them.
Under a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement program, federal authorities detained Serigne, a Senegalese asylum seeker and the brother of dishwasher Abdoul Mbengue in December.
"I didn't know what to do at first, but we had this community, and I told them this news," Mbengue says through a coworker who is translating his French.
A number of the cooks, dishwashers, and front-of-house staff at the Meta café known as Crashpad are from Africa, the Caribbean, or Ukraine. Some, like Mbengue, are in the U.S. on temporary authorizations while awaiting the resolution of asylum or immigration cases.
Mbengue's colleagues launched a fundraising campaign to pay for the legal defense of his brother.
Thousands of dollars altogether came in from Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon workers. On February 24, a judge ordered the release of Mbengue's brother.
"He is back because of the efforts," Mbengue says.
This activism inside the tech industry may shift as big tech companies become less responsive to worker petitions and decline to take public stands against Trump policies. A decade ago, thousands of tech workers protested against Trump's immigration bans alongside executives.
Workers allege that on January 29, two agents in "DHS" clothing looking for a specific non-Microsoft employee working at the company's headquarters campus in Redmond were turned away at the reception of the Commons building. Microsoft could not confirm that the visitors were law enforcement.
Meta declined to comment for this story. Amazon and Google didn't respond to requests for comment.
Under a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement program, federal authorities detained Serigne, a Senegalese asylum seeker and the brother of dishwasher Abdoul Mbengue in December.
"I didn't know what to do at first, but we had this community, and I told them this news," Mbengue says through a coworker who is translating his French.
A number of the cooks, dishwashers, and front-of-house staff at the Meta café known as Crashpad are from Africa, the Caribbean, or Ukraine. Some, like Mbengue, are in the U.S. on temporary authorizations while awaiting the resolution of asylum or immigration cases.
Mbengue's colleagues launched a fundraising campaign to pay for the legal defense of his brother.
Thousands of dollars altogether came in from Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon workers. On February 24, a judge ordered the release of Mbengue's brother.
"He is back because of the efforts," Mbengue says.
This activism inside the tech industry may shift as big tech companies become less responsive to worker petitions and decline to take public stands against Trump policies. A decade ago, thousands of tech workers protested against Trump's immigration bans alongside executives.
Workers allege that on January 29, two agents in "DHS" clothing looking for a specific non-Microsoft employee working at the company's headquarters campus in Redmond were turned away at the reception of the Commons building. Microsoft could not confirm that the visitors were law enforcement.
Meta declined to comment for this story. Amazon and Google didn't respond to requests for comment.
