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.
Um, think you've got this backwards. Private entities shouldn't have to take on anyone they don't want as customers (for whatever reason - do you have to justify who you do or don't want in your livingroom?), but publicly-funded institutions shouldn't be able to deny service on political grounds.
In free societies, governments should only be able to forcibly compel people not to do things (murder, threaten, steal, etc.) - see the concept of "negative rights."
Taking it further, what if a majority of businesses gradually decide to be racist and refuse all services just because they can? Not serving minorities wouldn't really impact their bottom line all that much. The minorities would literally die off.
It's easy to talk about "rights" as if they exist in a vacuum i.e. my rights are mine and they do not affect anyone else, ergo my rights should be absolute. They are not, and should not.
Reality is usually a tenuous balance of rights (usually tilted towards the majority) that people participating in civil society share.
If I'll ever find my self in a situation like this - I'll pack my things and run. I'm not going to be happy in a place like this even if government will force those people to tolerate me.
> if a majority of businesses gradually decide to be racist and refuse all services just because they can
That means anyone entrepreneurial enough will have access to an underserved niche market.
An underserved niche market of people who have significantly less money because they can't find work - and your company won't hire them because your other customers who actually have money will boycott you - isn't worth much.
A food establishment forced to serve you might serve you food that's gone bad, a mechanic might not fully tighten the nuts on your brake pads, or any other variety of horrible things that people could do to harm you while leaving room for plausible deniability.
At least if they can legally deny service to you, you know that the ones serving you aren't a risk to your wellbeing. And to that end, I think it's a bit unfair to suggest that less money means there would be no businesses to serve that group of people. If every restaurant is discriminating, the singular restuarant that serves the less wealthy group would have plenty of business, simply due to the lack of competition.
The "pro-regulation" argument is valid with regard to a less commoditized market though, which is interesting. For example, I wouldn't want the only company that makes a life-saving drug to be able to legally discrimate who they sell it to.
It's a challenging problem and I certainly see both sides. My gut goes to regulations affecting large businesses but not smaller ones. It feels like there are probably some difficult edge-cases within there though.
Assuming that refusal-of-service is a sort of relief valve is wildly optimistic.
Overt but relatively passive forms of racism effectively give pervasive comfort and encouragement to those who would engage in more active acts. Indirectly, this is also why "dog whistle" speech is so dangerous.
Per your example, in an environment where simply refusing service to you was common and widespread, you might find that someone who does agree to serve you is doing so just for the opportunity to spit in your food (at best).