An Irish-American tech company has intervened in the current US immigration controversy by offering to pay the legal fees of Muslim tech workers thinking of moving to Dublin.

Software firm Intercom is offering to pay legal fees of up to €250,000 for or “at least” 50 Muslim tech workers if they consider Dublin as their next career destination.

The move was announced by Intercom’s chief executive and cofounder, Eoghan McCabe.

“If you’re in tech, and you’re from one of the newly unfavoured countries, or even if you’re not, but you’re feeling persecuted for being Muslim, we’d like to help you consider Dublin as a place to live and work,” wrote Mr McCabe in a company blogpost.

“Simply drop us an email at love@intercom.com and… we’ll advise you on moving to Dublin. Help you understand what it’s like. Even connect you with our Muslim friends there. We’ll connect you with tech companies in Dublin who are very hungry for new talent. If you decide you want to look into moving seriously, we’ll retain our Dublin immigration attorneys for you and pay your legal bills with them, up to €5,000. We’ll do this for as many as we can afford. We should be able to do this for at least 50 people. And if you end up moving there, we’ll pair you with an Intercom buddy to show you around, help you learn about the different neighbourhoods and schools and fun things to do.”

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Mr McCabe said that the offer was not meant as a recruitment drive to take advantage of the current instability around migration policy in the US.

“We will explicitly not be pitching anyone on working for Intercom,” he said. “This is not a recruitment drive for Intercom. This is us doing what little we can, in accordance with our values, to help those we care about.

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“I moved to San Francisco from Ireland in 2011 and now hold a green card and live here. I set up our headquarters here, which contains all of our business functions. My cofounders set up our Dublin office, where our research and development teams are based. And we have over 150 people in each office now. We’d like to use this special position we’re in to try help anyone in our industry feeling unsafe and hurt right now.”

Intercom’s move comes after Limerick-born Stripe co-founder Patrick Collison announced that he would match donations of up to $50,000 to the American Civil Liberties Union, which has pledged to fight President Trump’s new immigration policy.

Mr Collison’s company, which enables online payments, is based in San Francisco with a growing office in Dublin.

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