Apple CEO Tim Cook speaks at 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 push through immigration reforms that would create a path to citizenship for immigrants known as “Dreamers.”
Cook made the statement on behalf of the Business Roundtable, an influential group of prominent business leaders. Cook serves as chairman of the group’s immigration committee.
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 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 reforms beyond the Dream and Promise Act to resolve the country’s “ broken immigration system. ”
Dreamers are undocumented immigrants who came to the US when they were children. The Dream Act would create a path to citizenship for approximately 2.5 million people, according to the authors. Democrats in Parliament are expected to continue with the bill this week.
Cook, in particular, is outspoken about Dreamers. On Thursday, he said in a tweet that Apple employs 450 Dreamers. In 2019, Cook co-authored a friend-of-the-court briefing filed with the Supreme Court with detailed stories from multiple Dreamer Apple employees. At the time, the court was debating whether the Trump administration’s decision to adopt the Obama-era program protecting Dreamers was legal.
“We do this here to emphasize that Apple cares not only about us as a company, but also about us as leaders, colleagues and people,” Cook wrote at the time. “This is a problem that we feel to our core.”
The full statement from the Business Roundtable is presented below:
Dreamers – who came to America as children and who know it as their only home – make an invaluable contribution 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 revitalize the U.S. economy, we need their continued contributions as equal partners in the American narrative, and we urge members on both sides of the aisle to support the American Dream and Promise Act to make that happen.
The vast majority of Americans believe that standing up for Dreamers should be a priority. Once the American Dream and Promise Act makes progress, the Business Roundtable urges policymakers to prioritize two-pronged and practical solutions to restore our broken immigration system, enforce the rule of law and respond to the pressing challenges we face .