January 30, 2017

Starbucks Responds to Trump Immigration Order With Pledge to Hire 10,000 Refugees

Trump supporters say they’ll boycott the company.

Andrew Kelly/Reuters

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In a direct response to President Donald Trump’s executive order banning travel from seven Muslim-majority countries, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz announced the company will hire 10,000 refugees in the 75 countries where it does business, with the effort starting in the United States.

“We are living in an unprecedented time, one in which we are witness to the conscience of our country, and the promise of the American dream, being called into question,” Schultz wrote in a company-wide memo on Sunday. “These uncertain times call for different measures and communication tools than we have used in the past.”

“There are more than 65 million citizens of the world recognized as refugees by the United Nations, and we are developing plan to hire 10,000 of them over five years in the 75 countries around the world where Starbucks does business,” he continued.

According to the announcement, the refugee hiring plan will start with an initial focus on “those individuals who have served with US troops as interpreters and support personnel.” The letter also denounced some of the president’s other controversial policies, including his plan to build a wall along the US-Mexico border and efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

The letter on Sunday adds Schultz to a growing list of business executives who have publicly criticized Trump’s immigration order since it was signed on Friday. While the hiring proposal was largely met with praise, some have taken to social media to protest Starbucks:

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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