GitHub – the largest source code repository – was acquired by Microsoft for $7.5bn (£5.6bn) in stock in June 2018, amid a move towards collaborative, open-source technologies and cloud-based services under CEO Satya Nadella. Microsoft had previously hosted its own open-source code on the platform.

GitHub has had contracts with ICE since 2016. The agency has come under criticism for facilitating the mass deportation of millions of migrants (including many with no criminal convictions) since the Obama administration, with outcry intensifying under President Donald Trump’s zero-tolerance policy to immigration. Throughout 2018, thousands of minors were separated from their guardians while attempting to cross the US-Mexico border and placed in unsanitary detention camps, referred to as ‘concentration camps’ by anti-ICE campaigners.

An internal email written by GitHub CEO Nat Friedman and leaked to digital rights campaign Fight for the Future (since published openly on GitHub), revealed that the ICE has renewed its contract for an on-premises GitHub enterprise server licence. According to Friedman, the contract is worth less than $200,000.

Friedman acknowledges concerns about the ICE’s work (which “run counter to our values as a company, and to our ethics as people”) in his email, but states that the ICE’s use of a GitHub server licence are most likely used for software development and version control. Friedman added that if ICE was found to have violated GitHub’s terms of service action could be taken against the agency. However, it is unclear how GitHub could discover misuse by the ICE, particularly given Friedman’s support for GitHub customers to operate privately: he wrote that the Microsoft subsidiary “has no visibility into how this software is being used”.

The Washington Post has obtained a letter from GitHub employees expressing anger about the renewal of the ICE contract: “We implore GitHub to immediately cancel its contract with ICE, no matter the cost […] now is the time to take a stand, or be complicit,” the employees wrote.

The employees do not mince their words, laying the responsibility for a “human crisis” with ICE, and adding: “The evidence is clear that ICE is using technology to terrorise families and communities and violate human rights, in direct contravention of both domestic and international law.”

Hundreds of GitHub users have signed a letter calling on Microsoft to end its relationship with ICE, warning that they will “simply take [their] projects elsewhere”. At least one software engineer, Seth Vargo, has removed pulled code from the platform.

GitHub has pledged $500,000 to non-profit groups working to support migrants, and is encouraging members of the community to support “human immigration policies and migrant rights”.

In February, Microsoft employees called on the company to cancel its nearly $500m contract to license its mixed-reality HoloLens headset for military purposes, following similar protests against other contracts with ICE and the Department of Defense.

In August, more than 1,500 Google employees called on the company to end its contract – for the supply of cloud services – with the US Customs and Border Protection. In July, Google confirmed that its work on a much-criticised censored search engine for the Chinese market had been terminated following employee outcry.

GitHub – the largest source code repository – was acquired by Microsoft for $7.5bn (£5.6bn) in stock in June 2018, amid a move towards collaborative, open-source technologies and cloud-based services under CEO Satya Nadella. Microsoft had previously hosted its own open-source code on the platform.

GitHub has had contracts with ICE since 2016. The agency has come under criticism for facilitating the mass deportation of millions of migrants (including many with no criminal convictions) since the Obama administration, with outcry intensifying under President Donald Trump’s zero-tolerance policy to immigration. Throughout 2018, thousands of minors were separated from their guardians while attempting to cross the US-Mexico border and placed in unsanitary detention camps, referred to as ‘concentration camps’ by anti-ICE campaigners.

An internal email written by GitHub CEO Nat Friedman and leaked to digital rights campaign Fight for the Future (since published openly on GitHub), revealed that the ICE has renewed its contract for an on-premises GitHub enterprise server licence. According to Friedman, the contract is worth less than $200,000.

Friedman acknowledges concerns about the ICE’s work (which “run counter to our values as a company, and to our ethics as people”) in his email, but states that the ICE’s use of a GitHub server licence are most likely used for software development and version control. Friedman added that if ICE was found to have violated GitHub’s terms of service action could be taken against the agency. However, it is unclear how GitHub could discover misuse by the ICE, particularly given Friedman’s support for GitHub customers to operate privately: he wrote that the Microsoft subsidiary “has no visibility into how this software is being used”.

The Washington Post has obtained a letter from GitHub employees expressing anger about the renewal of the ICE contract: “We implore GitHub to immediately cancel its contract with ICE, no matter the cost […] now is the time to take a stand, or be complicit,” the employees wrote.

The employees do not mince their words, laying the responsibility for a “human crisis” with ICE, and adding: “The evidence is clear that ICE is using technology to terrorise families and communities and violate human rights, in direct contravention of both domestic and international law.”

Hundreds of GitHub users have signed a letter calling on Microsoft to end its relationship with ICE, warning that they will “simply take [their] projects elsewhere”. At least one software engineer, Seth Vargo, has removed pulled code from the platform.

GitHub has pledged $500,000 to non-profit groups working to support migrants, and is encouraging members of the community to support “human immigration policies and migrant rights”.

In February, Microsoft employees called on the company to cancel its nearly $500m contract to license its mixed-reality HoloLens headset for military purposes, following similar protests against other contracts with ICE and the Department of Defense.

In August, more than 1,500 Google employees called on the company to end its contract – for the supply of cloud services – with the US Customs and Border Protection. In July, Google confirmed that its work on a much-criticised censored search engine for the Chinese market had been terminated following employee outcry.