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>As a CEO, I see each day the direct contributions that talented employees from around the world bring to our company, our customers and to the broader economy.

>As a CEO, I see each day the direct contributions that talented employees from around the world bring to our company, our customers and to the broader economy. We care deeply about the DREAMers who work at Microsoft and fully support them. We will always stand for diversity and economic opportunity for everyone. Diversity doesn't require illegal immigration, nor are the children of illegal immigrants particularly beneficial to their host country -- if you have any faith in our system (that should be designed to select for the best and brightest), you'd have to admit that the immigrants admitted by a real merit-based immigration system would be superior to immigrants admitted more or less at random. The only traits that illegal immigration selects for are desperation and a willingness to break laws and live on the fringes of society. Not that I believe Satya Nadella is sincere in any case, this is just evidence of the growing politicization of large tech companies (as the anti-trust suits loom) -- large corporations don't support liberal causes out of genuine concern (corporations are by default, sociopathic) -- they're trying to do political astroturfing: the goal is to prolong the continued existence of their monopolies. If the issue of concentration of power in the tech giants were to be handled solely (and dispassionately) by the appropriate financial regulatory bodies, it would be over very quickly. The large tech giants plan to avoid that by making their existence an ongoing issue in the cultural cold war, split the popular opinion down the middle, and make the issue too political to ever be resolved.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
muddi900 9y ago
I think the suggestion is that if the immigrants were Caucasian, this would not be a big deal. Which is true; most people of Irish, Scottish and German descent came here when the standards of entry were fad less rigorous. If lax immigration policy selects for illegal behavior, then most Caucasian should be sequestered into camps, should they make us the victims of their illegal behavior.
- amagaeru 9y ago
  If we're ignoring the law, why aren't you ignoring race?
- nostrademons 9y ago
  Irish immigrants during the 1840-1900 period were not initially considered "white", nor were Italians & Spanish during their period of peak immigration (1890-1920 & 1830-1860, respectively). You see this with NINA (No Irish Need Apply) signs around the turn of the century, and with old WW2 movies where the Italian and Spanish characters are often still called "wops" or "spics". There are some fascinating books and articles on this, eg. https://books.google.ie/books/about/How_the_Irish_became_white.html?id=w7ztAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y https://books.google.ie/books/about/How_the_Irish_became_whi... The history of immigration and of "whiteness" in the U.S. is a fascinating study in cognitive biases. If you look at groups that we consider fully American now (eg. Irish-Americans) vs. how we considered them when they first immigrated, it's night-and-day (except for African-Americans people, who were shat upon when they were first brought over and are still shat upon now). It's clear, historically, that we were mistaken in the past, and yet people still make the same mistake, probably because it is evolutionarily useful to consider yourself superior to other people and socially useful to do so in groups. Indeed, even in the most PC, liberal, progressive, colorblind, diversity-affirming circles, the same dynamic still plays out, except that the "other" in those cases is rural dwellers, or people who didn't graduate from college, or folks who live in the South.
Malician 9y ago
27 Microsoft employees are covered under this status and will presumably be deported (though I don't know if this will actually ever happen or how long it will take; practically they will have to stop working for Microsoft if their status to do so is revoked.)
- amagaeru 9y ago
  Why would they have to stop working for Microsoft? Microsoft is a large, multi-national corporation. What better way to say "We still support these people" than, where possible, helping to relocate them to an office in their country of origin? Not every country, or city, has a Microsoft office, but Microsoft isn't exclusively in Redmond, either. This issue should not be simplified to "You have to go back." Even if it were, that would still leave a lot of creative solutions for how Microsoft (and other large, wealthy corporations) could take care of the employees they claim to care so much about, regardless of where they live.
ciconia 9y ago
> The only traits that illegal immigration selects for are desperation and a willingness to break laws and live on the fringes of society. So those Microsoft DREAMers Nadella is talking about are nothing but miserable, desperate nothings who live on the fringe and contribute nothing to America?
EliRivers 9y ago
The only traits that illegal immigration selects for are desperation and a willingness to break laws and live on the fringes of society. Alternatively, entrepreneurial go-getting risk-takers with the gumption to actively make better lives for themselves, planning ahead and investing in their own futures, able to prosper with minimal assistance from the state.
- amagaeru 9y ago
  Any crime can be flipped to show "positive" attributes of the perpetrator, usually to downplay the crime. A skilled thief could be described exactly as you have described an illegal immigrant. Plans ahead, "invests" in their own future, able to "prosper" with minimal assistance from the state. (In fact, assistance is explicitly avoided at times, it would complicate matters...) Taking this further down the absurdity rabbit-hole, one could even suggest that a non-criminal lacks the necessary traits to succeed - companies should show preferential treatment to criminals, or at least certain types of criminals. (Who decides this? Also, in before white collar criminals.) A lot could be said about the positive attributes of serial killers, if we want to go hyperbolic.
  - EliRivers 9y ago
    I very strongly disagree. In fact, I would go so far as to say that I think that thesis "criminals succeed in life and make good employees" is incorrect. I don't think you are proposing that thesis; I think you're engaging in the typical hacker news out-of-context nit-pickery. I am not suggesting that illegal immigrants do well because they are criminals. I suggest they do well because they make sensible, long-term choices to build themselves a better future, and that people who want to do that and are willing to work hard within a society are a benefit to that society. A lot of criminals do not plan well for the future. They repeatedly make bad choices, based on short terms gains that seriously jeopardise their longer term futures as they suffer the consequences of their criminal actions. Their crimes are frequently not sensible investments in their circumstances to build themselves a better future, but actually give them a worse future as they suffer the penalties of having attracted the attention of law-enforcement. They do not typically prosper; many criminals have low incomes and have damaged prospects. one could even suggest that a non-criminal lacks the necessary traits to succeed The evidence indicates otherwise. Non-criminals typically do better. As an aside, it's interesting that I frequently see the argument "it's illegal" being presented against illegal immigration; when part of the argument against something is that it's illegal, rather than wrong or damaging, it's quite telling. Some people even lead with that argument; that the problem with illegal immigrants is that they broke a rule years ago by coming in without permission - not that there's an actual problem with what they're doing.
candu 9y ago
Following the law isn’t a moral imperative. Most of us have broken the law before: speeding, using proscribed substances, “forgetting” to declare items at customs, etc. A cursory glance at history turns up all sorts of cases where civil disobedience changed our laws and systems for the better. (There are, of course, also counterexamples where civil disobedience led to strife and violence. The larger point is that the law is mutable; its mutability is a feature, not a bug.) As to the “merit” argument: designing merit-based systems is hard. Merit is neither totally ordered nor easily perceived - see, for instance, any amount of research about the effectiveness of interviewing processes. (TL;DR: it’s really low; most interviewers make up their minds in the first few seconds of an interaction; without blind interview practices, decisions are often biased.) To put it bluntly, I very much do not share that faith. I consider it rather more likely that any “merit-based” system instituted would be used to give the appearance of legitimacy to racial profiling in immigration policy.
- amagaeru 9y ago
  Though I agree with your comments on the complexity and inherent difficulty of a merit-based system, it doesn't make a lot of sense to plop 'civil disobedience' in there. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/civil https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/civil Illegal immigrants are not citizens. Or were you talking about the coyotes with US citizenship? Most wouldn't call that civil disobedience.
tzm 9y ago
> The only traits that illegal immigration selects for are desperation and a willingness to break laws and live on the fringes of society. What an irresponsible statement.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

muddi900 9y ago

I think the suggestion is that if the immigrants were Caucasian, this would not be a big deal. Which is true; most people of Irish, Scottish and German descent came here when the standards of entry were fad less rigorous. If lax immigration policy selects for illegal behavior, then most Caucasian should be sequestered into camps, should they make us the victims of their illegal behavior.

amagaeru 9y ago
If we're ignoring the law, why aren't you ignoring race?
nostrademons 9y ago
Irish immigrants during the 1840-1900 period were not initially considered "white", nor were Italians & Spanish during their period of peak immigration (1890-1920 & 1830-1860, respectively). You see this with NINA (No Irish Need Apply) signs around the turn of the century, and with old WW2 movies where the Italian and Spanish characters are often still called "wops" or "spics". There are some fascinating books and articles on this, eg. https://books.google.ie/books/about/How_the_Irish_became_white.html?id=w7ztAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y https://books.google.ie/books/about/How_the_Irish_became_whi... The history of immigration and of "whiteness" in the U.S. is a fascinating study in cognitive biases. If you look at groups that we consider fully American now (eg. Irish-Americans) vs. how we considered them when they first immigrated, it's night-and-day (except for African-Americans people, who were shat upon when they were first brought over and are still shat upon now). It's clear, historically, that we were mistaken in the past, and yet people still make the same mistake, probably because it is evolutionarily useful to consider yourself superior to other people and socially useful to do so in groups. Indeed, even in the most PC, liberal, progressive, colorblind, diversity-affirming circles, the same dynamic still plays out, except that the "other" in those cases is rural dwellers, or people who didn't graduate from college, or folks who live in the South.

Malician 9y ago

27 Microsoft employees are covered under this status and will presumably be deported (though I don't know if this will actually ever happen or how long it will take; practically they will have to stop working for Microsoft if their status to do so is revoked.)

amagaeru 9y ago
Why would they have to stop working for Microsoft? Microsoft is a large, multi-national corporation. What better way to say "We still support these people" than, where possible, helping to relocate them to an office in their country of origin? Not every country, or city, has a Microsoft office, but Microsoft isn't exclusively in Redmond, either. This issue should not be simplified to "You have to go back." Even if it were, that would still leave a lot of creative solutions for how Microsoft (and other large, wealthy corporations) could take care of the employees they claim to care so much about, regardless of where they live.

ciconia 9y ago

> The only traits that illegal immigration selects for are desperation and a willingness to break laws and live on the fringes of society. So those Microsoft DREAMers Nadella is talking about are nothing but miserable, desperate nothings who live on the fringe and contribute nothing to America?

EliRivers 9y ago

The only traits that illegal immigration selects for are desperation and a willingness to break laws and live on the fringes of society. Alternatively, entrepreneurial go-getting risk-takers with the gumption to actively make better lives for themselves, planning ahead and investing in their own futures, able to prosper with minimal assistance from the state.

amagaeru 9y ago
Any crime can be flipped to show "positive" attributes of the perpetrator, usually to downplay the crime. A skilled thief could be described exactly as you have described an illegal immigrant. Plans ahead, "invests" in their own future, able to "prosper" with minimal assistance from the state. (In fact, assistance is explicitly avoided at times, it would complicate matters...) Taking this further down the absurdity rabbit-hole, one could even suggest that a non-criminal lacks the necessary traits to succeed - companies should show preferential treatment to criminals, or at least certain types of criminals. (Who decides this? Also, in before white collar criminals.) A lot could be said about the positive attributes of serial killers, if we want to go hyperbolic.
- EliRivers 9y ago
  I very strongly disagree. In fact, I would go so far as to say that I think that thesis "criminals succeed in life and make good employees" is incorrect. I don't think you are proposing that thesis; I think you're engaging in the typical hacker news out-of-context nit-pickery. I am not suggesting that illegal immigrants do well because they are criminals. I suggest they do well because they make sensible, long-term choices to build themselves a better future, and that people who want to do that and are willing to work hard within a society are a benefit to that society. A lot of criminals do not plan well for the future. They repeatedly make bad choices, based on short terms gains that seriously jeopardise their longer term futures as they suffer the consequences of their criminal actions. Their crimes are frequently not sensible investments in their circumstances to build themselves a better future, but actually give them a worse future as they suffer the penalties of having attracted the attention of law-enforcement. They do not typically prosper; many criminals have low incomes and have damaged prospects. one could even suggest that a non-criminal lacks the necessary traits to succeed The evidence indicates otherwise. Non-criminals typically do better. As an aside, it's interesting that I frequently see the argument "it's illegal" being presented against illegal immigration; when part of the argument against something is that it's illegal, rather than wrong or damaging, it's quite telling. Some people even lead with that argument; that the problem with illegal immigrants is that they broke a rule years ago by coming in without permission - not that there's an actual problem with what they're doing.

candu 9y ago

Following the law isn’t a moral imperative. Most of us have broken the law before: speeding, using proscribed substances, “forgetting” to declare items at customs, etc. A cursory glance at history turns up all sorts of cases where civil disobedience changed our laws and systems for the better. (There are, of course, also counterexamples where civil disobedience led to strife and violence. The larger point is that the law is mutable; its mutability is a feature, not a bug.) As to the “merit” argument: designing merit-based systems is hard. Merit is neither totally ordered nor easily perceived - see, for instance, any amount of research about the effectiveness of interviewing processes. (TL;DR: it’s really low; most interviewers make up their minds in the first few seconds of an interaction; without blind interview practices, decisions are often biased.) To put it bluntly, I very much do not share that faith. I consider it rather more likely that any “merit-based” system instituted would be used to give the appearance of legitimacy to racial profiling in immigration policy.

amagaeru 9y ago
Though I agree with your comments on the complexity and inherent difficulty of a merit-based system, it doesn't make a lot of sense to plop 'civil disobedience' in there. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/civil https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/civil Illegal immigrants are not citizens. Or were you talking about the coyotes with US citizenship? Most wouldn't call that civil disobedience.

tzm 9y ago

> The only traits that illegal immigration selects for are desperation and a willingness to break laws and live on the fringes of society. What an irresponsible statement.