I'm no fan of ICE – a very large percentage of my friends in the US are immigrants, and I generally want my country to be a welcoming one. ICE has certainly committed unethical and probably illegal acts (probably true of most federal agencies).
But to expect that a _federal agency_ will be denied service from a private entity, especially for essentially political reasons, is lunacy. It'd attract extreme negative attention from the rest of the government, and great fear from all paying customers that an internet mob could separate them from their code at any time.
We should absolutely be lobbying hard for changes to immigration law, the restrictions placed on ICE, and justice for their wrongdoings.
But I can't see how this helps improve immigration, and it certainly seems likely to cause a lot of negative consequences for GitHub. The employees are putting their employer in a "damned if they do, damned if they don't" situation.
EDIT: Just to clarify, I love the vision of a world where executives don't take actions their workers will protest. I think that in order to get there, the protests need to be reasonable, and I think this one isn't.
EDIT DISCLAIMER: I own a small amount of MSFT stock, which was not on my mind as I wrote this. I use GitHub's free service and have no other relationship I can think of with MSFT or GitHub.
It really isn't. Private institutions are under no obligation to collaborate with public agencies unless explicitly required by the Defense Production Act[0]. Please remember that the government is meant to serve us, not the other way around.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_Production_Act_of_1950
What exactly is that message? Maybe:
"If you make your money by separating families, putting kids in cages, and deporting asylum-seekers to places where they're in danger, then we don't want your money."
Do you see anything wrong with that message?