Is Time Magazine trying to start an ICE boycott?

The young woman who defeated Joe Crowley in New York last night ran on a platform which included a call to abolish ICE. Now I’m beginning to wonder if the mainstream media is getting onboard with the idea. One prime example popped up in my timeline this morning and took me by surprise. It’s an article from Time Magazine about Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but it has nothing to do with raids, deportations or employers hiring illegals. It’s a list of “15 organizations doing business with ICE and how much they’re making.”

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ICE is far from just a government organization. Private companies and educational institutions are in business with the agency — and starting to take heat for it.

A prime example is Microsoft, where more than 300 employees penned an angry open letter after discovering the company has a $19.4 million contract with ICE. They asked CEO Satya Nadella to cut those ties immediately…

MONEY combed through USAspending.gov, a database operated by the Treasury Department, to identify 15 organizations with recent ICE contracts. Although many of the deals don’t appear to involve border policies, the breadth of the $6 billion agency’s business ties helps to illustrate ICE’s large and growing influence.

The list runs the gamut of educational, scientific and service-related operations. They include Northeastern University (doing data mapping), Reuters, Motorola, Dell, Xerox and Amazon, along with accounting firms and even UPS for package delivery. Most of the companies contacted for comment were quick to point out that they have many government contracts and those arrangements don’t speak to the company’s core values or positions on political issues.

They’re correct, of course. Government agencies put out requests for bids on all manner of supplies and services and companies attempt to grab up as much of that business as they can. For all the complaining we do (with good reason) about how our elected officials handle taxpayer dollars, they do have a history of paying their bills (albeit rather slowly in many cases) so it’s a safe deal to make. Why would they worry about people attacking them for taking these contracts?

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I’ll tell you why. Because we live in the era of the boycottocracy and it’s particularly prominent in progressive circles. ICE is currently a favorite target on the left (apparently for having the temerity to follow the instructions they receive from the President and his cabinet) and it’s not hard to imagine these organizations quickly becoming the focus of their wrath. There’s zero chance that Time doesn’t know this, so are they just stoking the fire to see if people will begin threatening these schools and businesses with financial ruin unless they cut ties?

Of course, this is the same Time Magazine that decided their picture of the crying immigrant child staring up at Donald Trump passed muster under the Fake But Accurate doctrine, so who knows? Still, it’s a curious choice of a reporting project to feature just now.

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Ed Morrissey 12:40 PM | December 16, 2024
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