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A comment on GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract. Parent comment

Re:GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract by nostrademons on Thursday October 31, 2019 @06:43PM (#21414539)
Every non-citizen I know keeps their head down and doesn't express their personal opinions on political matters (particularly relating to ICE) because they don't want to jeopardize their visa. It would be strange and kinda stupid for a foreign programmer on an H1B to oppose a contract with ICE because they do eventually want to get that Green Card and eventually citizenship, and they know who holds the power in that relationship.

(It's also amusing to see that sometimes shift when they get their citizenship; I had a Japanese classmate in college who was on first a student visa, then an H1B, then a green card for about 15 years. He had zero political opinions for the whole time I knew him. As soon as he got his citizenship, he's active in local politics. It's more about urban planning, transit, and YIMBY efforts than immigration, though.)

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Re:GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract by temikus on Thursday October 31, 2019 @07:25PM (#21414832)
You are correct. As someone who used to be on very restrictive visas for a while - your job is not “just a job” anymore. It was very much a source of constant stress for me knowing that political shifts at work or a terrible boss could very well send you packing in a matter of days.
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Re:GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract by kevingadd on Thursday October 31, 2019 @08:11PM (#21415111)
This will be less likely to shift in the coming years, since the US government is openly investigating the ability to revoke citizenship. It's depressing to see, but I guess it shouldn't be surprising because the US approach to citizenship - birthright and/or naturalization - is not universally the case in other countries.
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