Apple CEO Tim Cook speaks during the Time 100 Summit event on April 23, 2019, in New York.
Don Emmert | AFP | Getty Images
Apple CEO Tim Cook urged lawmakers on Thursday to pass 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 prominent corporate leaders. Cook serves as the group’s immigration committee chair.
The statement continues Cook’s advocacy on behalf of Dreamers and follows comments from Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who praised the bill on Wednesday.
“Dreamers have been on the frontlines of fighting the pandemic as healthcare workers, of caring for our communities, and of working in the disciplines and industries that will help America emerge stronger on the other side of COVID-19,” Cook wrote.
The Business Roundtable also called for additional reform beyond the Dream and Promise Act to fix the country’s “broken immigration system.”
Dreamers are undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. when they were children. The Dream Act would create a path to citizenship for about 2.5 million people, according to its authors. Democrats in the House are expected to move forward with the bill this week.
Cook in particular has been outspoken about Dreamers. On Thursday, he said that Apple employs 450 Dreamers in a tweet. In 2019, Cook co-authored a friend-of-the-court brief filed with the Supreme Court with detailed narratives of multiple Dreamer Apple employees. At the time, the court was debating whether the Trump administration’s decision to terminate the Obama-era program that shields Dreamers was legal.
“We do so here to stress that not only does Apple care as a company, but we care as leaders, colleagues, and human beings,” Cook wrote at the time. “This is an issue we feel to our core.”
The full Business Roundtable statement is reproduced 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 on the frontlines of fighting the pandemic as healthcare workers, of caring for our communities, and of working in the disciplines and industries that will help America emerge stronger on the other side of COVID-19. As we work to reinvigorate 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 help make that possible.
The vast majority of Americans believe that standing up for Dreamers should be a priority. Once the American Dream and Promise Act moves forward, the Business Roundtable urges policymakers to prioritize bipartisan and practical solutions to fix our broken immigration system, enforce the rule of law and respond to the pressing challenges we face.
