“I was proud to be working at a company with a moral compass. I’m not proud anymore.”
That line — from one Google employee who helped organize a petition circulating inside the company — captures why roughly 800–900 Googlers have signed an open letter this week demanding that management end its work with U.S. immigration enforcement agencies and disclose all contracts with DHS, ICE and CBP.
The petition ignited after a string of high‑profile, deadly encounters involving federal agents and the reported targeting of Google staff. Signatories describe being "appalled by the violence" of recent raids and say Google technology is now being used in ways they find morally unacceptable.
What employees want
The demands are specific: full transparency about contracts and collaborations with DHS agencies, an immediate halt to any cloud or AI work that enables ICE or CBP operations, emergency safety measures for employees (including flexible remote work and immigration support) and a company‑wide Q&A with leadership.
More than a quick moral rebuke, the letter frames the issue as operational and structural. It singles out Google Cloud’s role in provisioning infrastructure for third parties — including firms like Palantir, which supplies ICE with core case‑management systems — and calls out the use of generative AI tools by federal agencies. “Google is powering this campaign of surveillance, violence, and repression,” the petition reads.
Those accusations echo recent reporting and earlier worker fights. In 2018, sustained internal protests pushed Google to cancel Project Maven, a Pentagon AI contract. Now, employees say the company’s growing commercial AI footprint — and its recent partnerships that place Google models into defense and government channels — deserve the same scrutiny. For context on Google’s AI reach inside products and services, see how its Gemini technology is being used across Google apps and enterprise offerings Gemini’s Deep Research May Soon Search Your Gmail and Drive — Google Docs Gains ‘Document Links’ Grounding.
Why this matters to Google — and to employees
The protest marks a broader revival of tech worker activism after years of relative quiet. Workers at several major firms have lately pressed leadership to take stands on public policy and human rights issues, and the current petition mirrors letters circulated at Amazon, Microsoft and Meta urging a break with ICE.
Inside Google, the staffers say management has not been forthcoming. They point to opaque contract processes, limited internal forums for dissent and prior instances where employees who protested were disciplined. That history shapes how organizers expect leadership to respond — not with bland reassurances, but with concrete contract disclosures and binding policy changes.
Employees also worry about physical safety. The letter asks Google to acknowledge and address reports of federal agents attempting to access campuses and to provide protections for staff who might be at risk.
The company’s links to federal work
Google provides cloud infrastructure and AI capabilities that, directly or indirectly, can be used by government agencies. The company has also pursued partnerships with large defense contractors and enterprise providers—moves that employees say blur the line between commercial products and instruments of state power. Google’s recent deals and technical collaborations — and their potential to feed into federal systems — have intensified the debate over where to draw that line. In related infrastructure news, Google has also explored ambitious data center concepts in new environments, underscoring how intertwined its hardware and cloud ambitions are with clients who need massive compute Google’s Project Suncatcher Aims to Put AI Data Centers in Space.
Google spokespeople did not provide a comment at the time the petition circulated. Company statements in past disputes have ranged from policy reiterations to contract cancellations, depending on the intensity of internal and external pressure.
A familiar playbook — and an uncertain outcome
This moment feels familiar to long‑time observers of Silicon Valley labor politics: principled employees push; management weighs legal, financial and reputational costs; sometimes contracts are revised or ended. But the terrain has shifted. Corporate AI deals are bigger and more central to product road maps than many legacy defense contracts, and government demand for cloud services has grown.
Organizers are betting that renewed pressure from inside — amplified by public demonstrations and cross‑company solidarity — can move the needle. Whether Google leadership will agree to full disclosure or retreat from specific agency work remains unclear. The petition, for now, has made the company’s internal debate public and reintroduced a question that keeps getting harder to avoid: when a tool becomes infrastructure for state action, who decides how it’s used?
The answer will shape not just Google’s contracts, but how large tech firms balance commercial ambition with employee conscience and public accountability.