Democratic U.S. Representative Ruben Gallego donated $17,500 his campaign received from executives for surveillance company Palantir to help undocumented immigrants, the Arizona Mirror has learned.
Gallego donated the campaign money to the Arizona Undocumented Workers Relief Fund, a spokesperson for the senator confirmed to the Mirror.
All of those contributions came directly from the company’s c-suite, including its chief revenue and legal officer and the executive responsible for getting Palantir software in the hands of governments.
“Seeing how the Trump Administration uses federal contracts to bolster ICE’s illegal operations, Senator Gallego voluntarily donated contributions received from Palantir and its employees to the Arizona Undocumented Workers Relief Fund a few months ago,” Gallego’s office said in a statement to the Mirror. “He will not accept Palantir (contributions) going forward.”
Palantir is a United States high-tech surveillance company that was founded in part by far-right entrepreneur and Trump ally Peter Theil. It has faced controversy over its use by governments around the world to conduct military operations and mass surveillance.
Stephen Miller, a top advisor to President Donald Trump, owns stock in the company, as do other members of the Trump administration. Trump’s administration has pushed for the use of Palantir tech to enforce multiple parts of the President’s agenda.
“The growing power and influence of Palantir at the highest levels of our government is terrifying. As the tech backbone of ICE — an agency that has killed two people in the last ten days alone — Palantir grows rich by lining the pockets of elected officials on both sides of the aisle to win more and more federal contracts,” Alejandra Gomez, executive director of Living United for Change in Arizona, said in a statement to the Mirror.
“This goes deeper than Palantir’s relationship with ICE; it’s about the company’s growing power and influence throughout our government. We applaud Gallego’s action and call on more elected officials to choose their constituents’ safety over dangerous surveillance tech,” Gomez added.
Gallego isn’t the first Arizona politician to disavow money from Palantir executives: In May, U.S. Rep. Greg Stanton, R-Phoenix, donated the $500 he received from a Palantir executive to the Latino political advocacy group Maremoto.
Palantir Payroll has been tracking donations from the company and its employees and first alerted the Mirror to the Gallego campaign’s divestment from the company.
“The Palantir Payroll tracks political giving to hold our elected officials accountable and make their ties to this mass surveillance behemoth impossible to ignore,” Theo Oshiro, co-executive director of Make the Road States, said about Gallego’s and others divestment from Palantir. “It’s encouraging to see another politician choose people over Palantir.”
The Arizona Community Foundation, which houses the fund Gallego said he donated the money to, said it could not “confirm, deny or discuss” information about individual donors.
Originally published on azmirror.com, part of the BLOX Digital Content Exchange.
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