{"id":21273,"date":"2017-02-03T12:27:50","date_gmt":"2017-02-03T12:27:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=21273"},"modified":"2017-02-03T12:27:50","modified_gmt":"2017-02-03T12:27:50","slug":"microsoft-asks-exception-program-trump-immigration-orders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/technology\/microsoft-asks-exception-program-trump-immigration-orders.html","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft asks for exception program on Trump immigration orders"},"content":{"rendered":"<div align=\"Justify\">\n<h2><span style=\"font-size: 18pt;\"><strong><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: #000000;\">Microsoft asks for exception program on Trump immigration orders<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: #000000;\"><strong>Microsoft asks for exception program on Trump immigration orders:-<\/strong> Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) on Thursday said it proposed a program to U.S. President Donald Trump&#8217;s administration allowing people from seven predominantly Muslim nations to enter and leave the United States on business or family emergency travel if they hold valid work or student visas and have not committed any crimes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: #000000;\">In a letter to Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Microsoft President Brad Smith outlined a program for case-by-case review of exceptions to a travel ban instituted last week.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: #000000;\">Microsoft is the first major U.S. company to press the government to create a formal program that would ease the ban for foreign-born workers who do not have permanent residence in the United States. Permanent residents, known as green card holders, were granted an exemption on Sunday.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: #000000;\">The proposal argued that Kelly and Tillerson have the power to grant exceptions to the travel ban under the order issued last week by Trump.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: #000000;\">Technology companies including Microsoft, Google owner Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O), Apple Inc (AAPL.O) and Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) have been vocal in their opposition to Trump\u2019s order, arguing that they rely on workers from around the world to create their products and services.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: #000000;\">Amazon and Expedia Inc (EXPE.O) filed declarations of support on Monday in a legal challenge to the order by the Washington state Attorney General. Microsoft said on Thursday that 76 of its employees and 41 dependents were affected by the travel ban.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: #000000;\">Microsoft\u2019s proposal would cover holders of the H-1B visa, a temporary work visa that the tech sector relies on to recruit foreign talent. Kelly issued an order on Sunday saying that green card holders would be allowed to travel under the executive orders, but H-1B holders from the seven affected countries are still banned.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: #000000;\">The proposal would also allow students to travel from affected countries if they can prove they were enrolled and in good standing at a U.S. school. The letter proposed that both students and employees would not be allowed to travel to the banned countries for business reasons but could travel there for family reasons with case-by-case approval.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: #000000;\">&#8220;In short, these individuals are &#8216;known quantities&#8217; in their communities: their character, personalities, conduct, and behavior is understood by their colleagues, employers, friends, and neighbors,&#8221; Microsoft&#8217;s Smith said in a blog post made at the same time the company sent its letter.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: #000000;\">Microsoft is also among several technology companies considering signing an open letter to Trump expressing concern about his ban on Syrian refugees, along with other issues such as the estimated 750,000 people brought to the United States as children whose immigration status is unclear.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: #000000;\">The letter is being circulated among tech companies and companies outside the sector, according to two sources in the industry familiar with the matter.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: #000000;\">Facebook Inc (FB.O), Apple, Google and Microsoft, along with a number of companies outside the sector, are considering signing, the sources said. Recode and Bloomberg previously reported the letter&#8217;s existence.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: #000000;\">Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Apple and Facebook could not immediately be reached for comment.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 8pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\">ource:-\u00a0http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-usa-trump-immigration-microsoft-idUSKBN15H1YJ<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"fb-background-color\">\n\t\t\t  <div \n\t\t\t  \tclass = \"fb-comments\" \n\t\t\t  \tdata-href = \"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/technology\/microsoft-asks-exception-program-trump-immigration-orders.html\"\n\t\t\t  \tdata-numposts = \"10\"\n\t\t\t  \tdata-lazy = \"true\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-colorscheme = \"light\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-order-by = \"social\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-mobile=true>\n\t\t\t  <\/div><\/div>\n\t\t  <style>\n\t\t    .fb-background-color {\n\t\t\t\tbackground: #ffffff !important;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t.fb_iframe_widget_fluid_desktop iframe {\n\t\t\t    width: 630px !important;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t  <\/style>\n\t\t  ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Microsoft asks for exception program on Trump immigration orders Microsoft asks for exception program on Trump immigration orders:- Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) on Thursday said it proposed a program to U.S. President Donald Trump&#8217;s administration allowing people from seven predominantly Muslim nations to enter and leave the United States on business [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21274,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[13075,837,10460,13074,10745,3299],"class_list":["post-21273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-bradford-lee-smith","tag-donald-trump","tag-john-kelly","tag-microsoft-asks-for-exception-program-on-trump-immigration-orders","tag-rex-tillerson","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21273\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}