Trump’s Immigration Policy Threatens Asians Working in Silicon Valley

Asians in Silicon Valley, whether CEOs or undocumented workers, will be impacted by the new policies. In Silicon Valley, where 60 percent of foreign-born individuals hail from India, China, Vietnam, the Philippines, and other Asian countries, the outcry against President Doanld Trump's anti-immigration stance has been especially high-profile. And the latest immigration rules, rolled out in the last few days, have many communities on edge.

On March 3, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services agency announced that it would suspend the H-1B visa program, one of the main routes to employment for immigrants sponsored by tech companies. Then Trump signed a new executive order on March 6 banning entry from six countries: Iran, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. These new rules will weaken the Asian community in the US, and its powerful contribution to the technology industry in the US. Throughout 2015, Asians made up 27 percent of the workforce at Google, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, LinkedIn, and Yahoo (though they were underrepresented in managerial and executive-level positions). In recent years, they've also made gains in the C suite with Google's Indian-born CEO, Sundar Pichai, and Microsoft's Indian-born CEO, Satya Nadella.