A group of top United States companies, including Google, Facebook and Microsoft, plan to form a coalition that will ask the US Congress to legislate in favour of the “dreamers”, Reuters reported on Friday.
“Dreamers” are the young illegal immigrants who were brought to the US when they were children. In September, President Donald Trump had revoked a programme that protected around 8,00,000 such individuals from deportation. This includes up to 7,000 people of Indian origin.
The “Coalition for the American Dream” will demand that the Congress pass a bipartisan law this year to allow the “dreamers” to continue to work in the US and get permanent residency, according to Reuters. About 72% of the top 25 Fortune 500 companies are said to employ beneficiaries of the programme.
Nearly two dozen companies are likely to be part of it, including Uber, IBM and Intel. “We’re pleased to join with other organisations in urging Congress to pass legislation to protect Dreamers,” an Intel spokesman told Reuters.
The Trump administration has said no new applicants would be accepted, though current beneficiaries of the programme would not be affected until March 5, 2018.
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