Google rips Trump immigration move, calls employees back to US

Google on Friday criticized President Trump’s executive order on immigration, saying the U.S. ban on visitors from seven countries hit at least 187 of the company’s employees.

“It’s painful to see the personal cost of this executive order on our colleagues,” Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in a memo to his staff on Friday, according to Bloomberg.

“We’ve always made our view on immigration issues known publicly and will continue to do so,” he added.

{mosads}Trump on Friday signed an executive order that temporarily prohibits entry to the U.S. for foreign nationals from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Somalia, Yemen and Libya. The ban is supposed to last at least 90 days.

Pichai said Google will focus on helping the affected employees, and encouraged them to reach out to Google’s global security team.

“Our first order of business is to help Googlers who are affected,” he said, according to the Wall Street Journal. “If you’re abroad and need help please reach out to our global security team.”

Pichai also talked about an internal meeting that Google held on Friday, in which two employees discussed how the order affects their situation.

“Just as that discussion was happening, another Googler was rushing back from a trip to New Zealand to make it into the US before the order was signed,” he wrote in the memo.

“We’re concerned about the impact of this order and any proposals that could impose restrictions on Googlers and their families, or that create barriers to bringing great talent to the U.S.,” the company’s spokeswoman said in a statement, according to Bloomberg.

“We’ll continue to make our views on these issues known to leaders in Washington and elsewhere,” she added.