Did Microsoft or Amazon end contracts with ICE and when?

1. The flashpoint: 2018 employee rebellions and public pressure

A burst of public outrage over family separations at the U.S.–Mexico border in 2018 triggered sustained internal activism at major tech firms—more than 100 Microsoft employees published an open letter demanding that Microsoft cancel contracts with ICE, and hundreds more pressed Amazon over ties to Palantir and facial‑recognition sales to law enforcement ^{[5] [6] [3]}; those protests focused attention on a small GitHub contract and on Palantir’s systems running on Amazon Web Services ^{[2] [1]}.

2. What Microsoft did — protests, disclosures, but no blanket exit in the reporting

Reporting documents employee letters urging Microsoft and its GitHub subsidiary to cancel a roughly $200,000 support contract with ICE and describes internal campaigns and public pressure, but those sources do not show Microsoft unilaterally terminating all work with ICE; Microsoft defended the nature of some sales as standard IT services and the public record shows continued debate rather than a clean break ^{[2] [5] [7]}.

3. What Amazon did — employee pressure and indirect ties, not a documented termination

Amazon employees pressured leadership starting in mid‑2018 to cut partnerships—especially Palantir, whose Investigative Case Management runs in the AWS cloud—and reporting shows Amazon services being used by ICE through direct and third‑party arrangements, but the articles here document continued AWS involvement in ICE contracts and requests for new ICE cloud work rather than a definitive corporate withdrawal ^{[1] [6] [4]}.

4. The role of subcontracting and “middlemen” that blurs exits

Multiple investigations show that Google, Amazon and Microsoft frequently appear in ICE and CBP contracts via third‑party resellers or subcontracting arrangements, a practice that makes it hard to trace direct payments and also complicates claims that a vendor “ended” its relationship—Business Insider and follow‑ups document dozens of active contracts naming these vendors indirectly, indicating that stepping back publicly does not always stop the flow of services to ICE ^{[4] [8]}.

5. Exceptions and the contemporaneous landscape

Some contractors did sever ties: Forbes reported that only one of the companies high on protest lists—McKinsey & Company in that article—had fully cut ties with ICE at the time of that reporting, illustrating that some firms responded differently to pressure ^[3]; by contrast, the sources assembled here portray Microsoft and Amazon as subject to protest and scrutiny while still entwined with ICE work through various contracts and marketplaces ^{[1] [7]}.

6. Why definitive answers are elusive and what the companies say

Public procurement reporting is patchy because much of the vendors’ federal revenue is funneled through subcontractors and reseller marketplaces, and both companies often declined to comment in the cited pieces, meaning available reporting documents activism, solicitations and ongoing contract activity but does not produce a single, verifiable date on which Microsoft or Amazon “ended” all ICE work ^{[9] [10] [7]}.

7. Bottom line and reporting limits

Based on the sources provided, neither Microsoft nor Amazon can be credibly described as having fully ended contracts with ICE on a specific date; instead, both faced employee and public pressure beginning in 2018, continued to be implicated in ICE cloud and software ecosystems (sometimes via subcontractors), and resisted or qualified calls for blanket exits in the contemporaneous reporting ^{[1] [4] [2]}. If a definitive corporate divestment or termination occurred after the dates covered by these articles, that event is not documented in the materials reviewed here.