July 19, 2018•Update: July 20, 2018
By Barry Eitel
SAN FRANCISCO
A prominent immigrants rights group announced Thursday it declined a $250,000 donation from a cloud computing software company because of its relationship with the Trump administration.
Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Service (RAICES) Texas, a nonprofit focused on immigration advocacy, said Salesforce had approached the group with the large donation after the company’s employees complained the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) used Salesforce software.
The employees charged that CBP used the technology to help them separate children from their families at the U.S. southern border.
The group said it would only accept the donation if Salesforce canceled the CBP contract. According to RAICES, Salesforce refused and the donation was rejected.
“When it comes to supporting oppressive, inhumane and illegal policies, we want to be clear: the only right action is to stop,” RAICES said in the letter published Thursday on Twitter.
RAICES said the donation would not prevent advocates from Salesforce’s “support” of CBP.
“Your software provides an operational backbone for the agency, and thus does directly support CBP in implementing its inhumane and immoral policies,” the letter continued.
In response, Salesforce highlighted comments from its chief executive Marc Benioff.
“Salesforce always will be true to our core values,” he said in a statement. “We don’t work with CBP regarding separation of families. CBP is a customer and follows our [terms of service].”
Benioff said Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a controversial sister agency of CBP under the Department of Homeland Security, is not a Salesforce customer.
Several other nonprofits have sent letters to Salesforce urging the company to cancel its CBP contract. Now, groups like the Media Alliance and Fight for the Future have said they will cancel their contracts if CBP continues as a customer.
"What has been happening at the border is unacceptable and to engage in business as usual is to be complicit in cruelty and abuse," Tracy Rosenberg, the executive director at Media Alliance, said in a statement Thursday on Twitter. "We ask Salesforce to do the right thing, not the easy thing."
