The size of the contract, in the realm of federal contracts, was not huge: $22.8 million.
But it has shaken employees of Thomson Reuters for two reasons. The government agency is Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the employees’ location is Minnesota.
Thomson Reuters is a $50 billion Toronto-based company that owns the Reuters news service. It also operates a widely used legal research tool, Westlaw, whose operations are based in the suburbs of Minneapolis. Thousands of the company’s employees live there.
Operation Metro Surge, as the government called the influx of thousands of ICE agents to Minneapolis in December, directly affected their lives. One employee said ICE agents had raided his child’s school. Another bought groceries for immigrant neighbors who were afraid to leave their homes. Two had carried whistles to alert community members when ICE agents were spotted.
So when employees learned that the company was providing ICE with investigative software to pull public and private information about individuals, and to track license plates, it felt personal and they mobilized.
More than 200 Thomson Reuters employees have signed a letter to management asking that the company not renew the ICE contract when it expires in May. (Ten employees spoke to The New York Times, but asked that their names not be used for fear of retaliation.)
“We have experienced our neighbors, friends and family members undergoing arrests and detention, intimidation and harassment, and public violence,” the letter said. We “question if our investigative products and services are being used in accordance with our mission and values, as well as in accordance with the law and our nation’s Constitution.”
In an emailed statement, a Thomson Reuters spokeswoman, Julia Commons, said that the company did not comment on specific contracts, but that it worked with customers “to support investigations into areas of national security and public safety.” The statement continued: “We remain committed to this mission while maintaining strong safeguards that ensure our products and services are used in accordance with our contractual terms and applicable law.”
During President Trump’s first term, tech employees and top tech executives criticized aggressive immigration policies, including a ban on visitors from some Muslim-majority countries. But his second administration has received a more muted response from the C-suite, and that is causing unrest among some workers, particularly after the surge in Minneapolis and the killing of two protesters, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, by federal agents. Since their deaths, more than 2,000 technology workers have signed a public letter condemning ICE’s actions and pressuring their companies to cancel contracts with the agency.
The pressure campaign within Thomson Reuters, which was reported earlier by The Minnesota Star Tribune, was set off by an Instagram post.
On Jan. 24, the day Mr. Pretti was killed in Minneapolis, a labor studies professor posted what he called the “Top Corporate Collaborators” with Immigration and Custom Enforcement.
“ICE can’t function without the private sector,” wrote Eric Blanc, an assistant professor of labor studies at Rutgers University.
The post, which got 99,000 likes, was just a list of 17 companies, without any accompanying evidence, but it caught the attention of a Thomson Reuters worker in Minnesota.
The worker shared the image on the internal communication platform used by the company’s 27,000 employees. “I was extremely troubled to find Thomson Reuters on this list,” he wrote, in a message reviewed by The Times.
It kicked off a conversation about why the company was on the list. Three employees told The Times that this was how they had learned that the company provided investigative tools to the government and that it had a $22.8 million contract with ICE.
The company turned off comments on the post, saying the corporate channel was intended to “foster productive conversations that move our business and community forward.” But the conversation continued. Hundreds of employees moved first to a new channel to keep talking and, when they thought it was being monitored, to the encrypted messaging platform Signal. A dozen employees formed “The Committee to Restore Trust” to draft the letter to management.
Employees who spoke with The Times do not work for the subsidiary that has the contract with ICE. That subsidiary, Thomson Reuters Special Services, or TRSS, is based in Virginia, and its website says it “helps customers identify and manage risk.”
It troubled the Minnesota-based employees that part of their company would allow a user to know a person’s identity and address by searching a license plate number. They knew people who had been intimidated by ICE agents. A legal complaint last month from the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota described episodes in which ICE agents looked up the personal information of peaceful protesters and intimidated them by reciting their names and, with knowledge of their addresses, leading them home in violation, the organization claims, of their constitutional rights.
The lawsuit describes how one resident, Emily Beltz, followed an ICE sport utility vehicle into a parking lot with her car. An agent leaned out the window and shouted, “Emily, Emily, we’re going to take you home,” then read out her home address.
Ultimately the employees want to know if the company’s software is being used to harass their communities, and the response they have gotten from Thomson Reuters managers and executives has not reassured them.
Employees also found that a minority shareholder in Thomson Reuters, the British Columbia General Employees’ Union, has been pressuring the company since 2020 to ensure that its investigative tools comply with human rights.
“Thomson Reuters is the gas in the tank that helps power the government’s immigration machinery,” said Emma Pullman, the head of shareholder engagement and responsible investment at the union. “We are currently engaging with the company about human rights due diligence and governance of A.I.-enabled products.”
Kashmir Hill writes about technology and how it is changing people’s everyday lives with a particular focus on privacy. She has been covering technology for more than a decade.
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