As immigration agents raided factories and other workplaces across the United States last June, workers at the Meta Cafe in Bellevue, Washington, made a pact: They would unite if the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown affected any of them. In December, the agreement passed its first test.
As part of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement program, federal authorities detained Serigne, a Senegalese asylum seeker and the brother of dishwasher Abdoul Mbengue. “At first I didn’t know what to do, but we had this community and I passed the message on to them,” Mbengue says through a colleague who translates his French.
Many of the cooks, dishwashers and front-of-house staff at Meta’s cafe, known as Crashpad, come from Africa, the Caribbean and Ukraine. Some of them, including Mbengue, are in the US on momentary permits and are awaiting resolution of their asylum or immigration cases. President Donald Trump is trying to limit momentary protection and granting enduring asylum, although some of his directives are being challenged in court.
In December, Mbengue’s associates launched a fundraising campaign to pay for the legal defense of his brother, who came to the U.S. in 2023 to escape complex conditions in Senegal. When the café workers honored their earlier agreement, word spread through group chats among social and environmental activists from other gigantic technology companies in the region. For example, a longtime software engineer at Amazon donated $100, then added $500 after learning more about the “nightmare,” he says, speaking anonymously because of the company’s policy on media interviews. In total, thousands of dollars were donated by Meta, Microsoft and Amazon employees. On February 24, a judge ordered Mbengue’s brother released. “He came back through effort,” says Mbengue.
The venture shows how activism in the tech industry may be changing as gigantic companies stop responding to employee petitions and refuse to publicly take a stand against Trump’s policies. Ten years ago, thousands of tech workers protested with executives against Trump’s immigration bans. Now workers say they must step in to support colleagues with the financial and administrative assistance they believe employers should provide to the most vulnerable and lower-income members of their communities.
In the case of Mbengue’s workplace, he and his more than 200 dining roommates in Bellevue and nearby Redmond are employed by the catering company Lavish Roots. Last year, more than 60 percent of them asked Lavish and Meta to respect workers’ rights to form a union with Unite Here Local 8. More than 5,000 employees from Microsoft, Google and various Meta offices at other catering companies across the country have already formed a union. According to Unite Here organizing director Sarah Jacobson, Lavish allegedly campaigned against workers through meetings, leaflets, text messages and emails. In her opinion, union supporters were disciplined, surveilled and subjected to novel regulations that hampered communication in the workplace.
While the main demand is better pay, immigration raids have also spurred organizing among Meta contractors. Under their collective agreements, unionized cafeteria workers at Microsoft, Google and other Meta offices have job protections when trying to renew their work permits. Immigration hearings count as excused time off. “They have security and the ability to live freely,” Mbengue says of Microsoft’s counterparts. The procedures also apply in other workplaces when ICE tries to enter offices.
Employees say it’s a valid concern. They allege that on January 29, two agents wearing “DHS” clothing, looking for a specific non-Microsoft employee working at the company’s Redmond headquarters, were invited to the front desk of the Commons building. Microsoft could not confirm that the visitors were law enforcement.