Apple CEO Tim Cook speaks at the Time 100 Summit on April 23, 2019 in New York.
Don Emmert | AFP | Getty Images
Apple CEO Tim Cook on Thursday urged lawmakers to implement immigration reform that would create a path to citizenship for immigrants known as ‘dreamers’.
Cook issued the statement on behalf of the Business Roundtable, an influential group of leading corporate leaders. Cook serves as chairman of the group’s immigration committee.
The statement continues with Cook’s advocacy on behalf of Dreamers and follows comments from Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who praised the bill Wednesday.
“Dreamers have been at the forefront of fighting the pandemic as health workers, caring for our communities and working in the disciplines and industries that will help America become stronger on the other side of COVID-19,” Cook wrote.
The Business Roundtable also called for additional reform outside the Dream and Promise Act to rectify the country’s ‘broken immigration system’.
Dreamers are immigrants without documents who came to the US when they were children. According to the authors, the Dream Act would create a path to citizenship for about 2.5 million people. Democrats in the House are expected to continue with the bill this week.
Cook is particularly outspoken about Dreamers. On Thursday, he said Apple was using 450 Dreamers in a tweet. In 2019, Cook co-authored an order from a friend of the court filed with the Supreme Court with detailed narratives from several employees of Dreamer Apple. The court spoke at the time whether the Trump administration’s decision to end the Obama-era program that protects Dreamers was legitimate.
“We do this here to emphasize that Apple not only cares as a business, but that we also care as leaders, colleagues and people,” Cook wrote at the time. “It’s an issue we feel down to our core.”
The full Business Roundtable statement is given below:
Dreamers – who came to America as children and who know it as their only home – make invaluable contributions to America and certainly to companies like ours. Dreamers have been at the forefront of fighting the pandemic as health workers, caring for our communities and working in the disciplines and industries that will help America become stronger on the other side of COVID-19. As we work to boost the U.S. economy, we need their continued contributions as equal partners in the American story, and we urge members on both sides of the aisle to vote in support of the American Dream and Promise Act to to make it possible.
The vast majority of Americans believe that it should be important to stand up for Dreamers. As U.S. dream and promise law moves forward, Business Roundtable calls on policymakers to prioritize dual and practical solutions to correct our broken immigration system, uphold the rule of law, and respond to the urgent challenges we face. facing.