{"id":444152,"date":"2026-01-29T01:55:27","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T01:55:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/444152\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T01:55:27","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T01:55:27","slug":"google-deepmind-staffers-ask-leaders-to-keep-them-physically-safe-from-ice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/444152\/","title":{"rendered":"Google DeepMind Staffers Ask Leaders to Keep Them \u2018Physically Safe\u2019 From ICE"},"content":{"rendered":"

Employees at Google DeepMind<\/a> have asked the company\u2019s leadership for plans and policies to keep them \u201cphysically safe\u201d from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)<\/a> while on the company\u2019s premises, according to screenshots of internal messages obtained by WIRED.<\/p>\n

On Monday morning, two days after federal agents shot and killed Minneapolis nurse Alex Pretti<\/a>, a Google DeepMind employee sent the following message in an internal message board for the company\u2019s roughly 3,000-person AI unit:<\/p>\n

\u201cUS focused question: What is GDM doing to keep us physically safe from ICE? The events of the past week have shown that immigration status, citizenship, or even the law is not a deterrent against detention, violence, or even death from federal operatives.\u201d<\/p>\n

It continues: \u201cWhat kinds of plans and policies are in place to ensure our safety at the office? Coming to and from work? As we have seen, government agency tactics can change and escalate quite rapidly. With offices in many metro areas across the US, are we prepared?\u201d<\/p>\n

The message received more than 20 \u201cplus emoji\u201d reactions from Google DeepMind staffers.<\/p>\n

By Monday evening, no senior leaders from Google had responded to the message. In fact, Google\u2019s top brass\u2014including CEO Sundar Pichai and DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis\u2014have remained silent on Pretti\u2019s killing even inside the company, sources say.<\/p>\n

The messages show some of the latest divisions<\/a> forming between AI firms and their employees over the Trump administration\u2019s deployment of federal immigration agents across America. While Silicon Valley CEOs have largely bent the knee<\/a> to Trump, their employees have started raising concerns internally and externally about the federal government\u2019s actions.<\/p>\n

Google DeepMind\u2019s chief scientist, Jeff Dean, has been one of the industry\u2019s most outspoken critics of ICE. In a post on X<\/a> Sunday, he responded to a video of Pretti\u2019s shooting saying, \u201cThis is absolutely shameful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Employees at the defense tech firm Palantir have questioned the company\u2019s decision to work with ICE<\/a>. WIRED previously reported that one Palantir employee wrote in Slack, \u201cIn my opinion ICE are the bad guys. I am not proud that the company I enjoy so much working for is part of this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Employees of AI labs that partner with Palantir\u2014including OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, and Meta\u2014have also discussed whether to push leaders to cut ties with the defense tech firm, The New York Times<\/a> reported.<\/p>\n

Concerns about ICE agents entering Google\u2019s offices are not unfounded. In a message obtained by WIRED, a separate Google DeepMind staffer raised concerns about a federal agent\u2019s alleged attempt to enter the company\u2019s Cambridge, Massachusetts, office in the fall.<\/p>\n

Google\u2019s head of security and risk operations responded to this message to clarify what had happened. They noted that an \u201cofficer arrived at reception without notice\u201d and that the agent was \u201cnot granted entry because they did not have a warrant and promptly left.\u201d<\/p>\n

Google declined to comment.<\/p>\n

Google is one of many Silicon Valley firms that relies on thousands of highly skilled foreign workers, many of whom are in the United States on visas. In light of the Trump administration\u2019s immigration crackdown, these firms have had to offer increased protections<\/a> for many of their workers. Late last year, Google and Apple advised employees on visas not to leave the country<\/a> after the White House toughened its vetting of visa applicants.<\/p>\n

At that time, Silicon Valley leaders were not shy about defending visa programs<\/a>, which have allowed the United States to bring in top talent from around the globe.<\/p>\n

But AI executives have appeared hesitant to speak out about the federal government\u2019s latest immigration actions. Beyond Google, top executives from Silicon Valley firms\u2014including OpenAI, Meta, xAI, Apple, and Amazon\u2014have yet to publicly comment on ICE activities. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman addressed the Minnesota incident in an internal message to the company, according to DealBook<\/a>, telling employees that \u201cwhat\u2019s happening with ICE is going too far.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Employees at Google DeepMind have asked the company\u2019s leadership for plans and policies to keep them \u201cphysically safe\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":444153,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[256,254,255,64,63,38822,2490,113,9281,43686,84,14916,105],"class_list":["post-444152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-deepmind","tag-donald-trump","tag-google","tag-immigration","tag-immigration-and-customs-enforcement","tag-politics","tag-silicon-valley","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=444152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/444153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}