Tech Giant's ICE Exit: A PR Stunt, Not a Conscience Crisis
📰 THE STORY: French tech giant Capgemini is reportedly selling its US subsidiary, VariQ, which has contracts with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The BBC frames this as a response to "global scrutiny of the methods used by the US immigration enforcement agency," implying the company is reacting to current events. 🔍 WHAT THEY'RE NOT TELLING YOU: Historical Context: This belated move
ignores the decades-long brutalization of immigrants by agencies like ICE. The agency's precursor, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), was central to operations like 'Operation Wetback' in 1954, which deported over a million people, often violently. ICE itself was formed in 2003, post-9/11, under the Department of Homeland Security, consolidating and expanding enforcement powers.
VariQ secured contracts worth tens of millions of dollars with ICE and DHS as far back as 2011, providing database support and IT modernization that enabled the agency's surveillance and enforcement capabilities for over a decade before this 'ethical' decision. Double Standard: The media praises Capgemini for a 'strategic exit' while conveniently ignoring the European Union's own escalating border
militarization, migrant pushbacks, and the involvement of European tech and defense firms in these very practices. While Capgemini is lauded for exiting ICE collaborations, European companies like Airbus and Leonardo are deeply embedded in Frontex, the EU's border agency, providing surveillance tech and equipment that contribute to dire conditions in the Mediterranean and on land borders. No