I agree, but they often are the ones who have the most to lose. They lose their job and then aren't able to pay rent that month/feed their family etc.
A VP or probably even a middle manager taking a similar stand likely has cash saved up/secondary income/investments/other options to withstand this sort of change with fewer catastrophic results.
Maybe Sam Altman, Chris Sacca and the like should put together a fund to help people who will not "just follow orders".
You know who might have more to lose? The people with green cards, the refugees, the people from that list of 7 countries, kept out of the US for bullshit reasons.
How do you know they aren't already doing it? From what I've read, the Executive Order was somewhat vague. Border officials do have some discretion.
Maybe they are strictly interpreting it in order to cause an outrage?
Just offering the possibility that some of the workers actually agree with it? That their spine is perfectly intact?
The low-level workers at these airports who are enforcing this bullshit ban. They need to grow some spines and start ignoring bad orders, no matter who they come from.
"I was just following orders" was never an acceptable excuse to do the wrong thing.