How the Mexico Tech Industry Benefits from U.S. Anti-Immigration Stance Salvador Rodriguez and Julia Love - Reuters
go to original October 17, 2017

Employees of San Francisco-based software company Wizeline, work at the company's offices in Guadalajara, Mexico (Reuters/Daniel Becerril)

Amazon, Facebook and other U.S. tech companies are expanding operations south of the border as Mexico works to capitalize on the Trump administration’s anti-immigration stance.

Since the beginning of the year, Amazon.com Inc has opened a new engineering office in Mexico City, while Facebook Inc has partnered with local groups to develop technical talent in the region.

Oracle Corp plans to expand its offices in the Pacific coast state of Jalisco, local officials said, possibly bringing hundreds of jobs.

In Guadalajara, Jalisco's capital, a new group devoted to recruiting startups expects to have 10 new companies in the region by year-end, with another 60 in the pipeline. And the landlord of choice for many startups, the shared-office juggernaut WeWork, said it has opened five locations and now serves 6,000 workers after debuting in Mexico City last September.

U.S. President Donald Trump's efforts to reduce immigration to the United States, including new constraints on H-1B visas for skilled workers - which many tech companies rely on for attracting foreign talent - have prompted countries ranging from China to Canada to step up recruiting tech workers and startup companies that might once have found a home in the United States.

For Mexico, there is an added urgency: more than 600,000 immigrants of Mexican origin are currently covered by the U.S. Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which offers protection from deportation for illegal immigrants brought to the United States as children.

Those individuals, known as "Dreamers," may soon have to look for work abroad as a result of the Trump administration's September decision to let DACA expire.

Read the rest at Reuters

We invite you to add your charity or supporting organizations' news stories and coming events to PVAngels so we can share them with the world. Do it now!