Trump’s immigration ban strains tenuous relations with Silicon Valley

World Today

For a second straight day, dozens of protestors rallied at airports in California to demonstrate against U.S. President Donald Trump’s immigration policies. In the San Francisco Bay area, considered the technology center of the U.S., an already tenuous relationship with President Trump appears to be worsening which some say will not bode well for business and innovation.

CGTN’s Mark Niu reports.

Protesters at San Francisco International Airport have spent all day and night denouncing President Trump’s executive order. Google co-founder Sergey Brin showed up at one airport protest.

Iranian-American Ashkaan, who declined to provide his last name out of fear, has been organizing supplies for protesters.

He was born in Texas and grew up in Iran and came to Silicon Valley to start both an exporting company and a manufacturing company.

In a company memo, Google CEO Sundar Pichai reportedly ordered more than 100 staff currently traveling overseas to return to the United States out of fear of them being detained.

The irony of those with family caught up in the executive action may best be illustrated by protestors like Ashkaan, who says one of the books that inspired him to become an entrepreneur was Trump’s “Art of the Deal.”