SEATTLE _ Dozens of staffers and their dependents unable to travel, job candidates with offers in hand now possibly being reassigned to countries other than the U.S., and an Iranian movie director barred from attending Oscar night. That's how Amazon.com put human faces on costs it has borne from the White House's controversial entry ban on nationals of seven Muslim countries.
In a declaration filed with the Washington state attorney general's suit against the executive order issued last Friday by President Trump, Amazon executive Ayesha Blackwell-Hawkins detailed how the surprise edict interfered with the smooth running of the world's largest e-commerce firm. Expedia, the online travel company, also submitted a declaration in support of the lawsuit.
Blackwell-Hawkins, who is senior manager for mobility and immigration at Seattle-based Amazon, said the order "immediately _ and negatively _ impacted employees, dependents of employees, and candidates for employment with Amazon."
Amazon's move to back the attorney general's suit came amid widespread backlash in the tech industry against the temporary restriction, which the administration says will protect the U.S. from terrorist infiltration while the government figures out ways to improve vetting of travelers.
From Google to Lyft, companies joined the outcry, but Amazon's response, involving the court system, seemed to go a step further than most.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said Monday that the company does not support the order, and that it's reaching out to congressional leaders to "explore legislative options," and is considering "other legal options as well."
The company identified 49 U.S.-based employees born in Syria, Iran, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan and Iraq.
Forty-seven of them are citizens of another country not covered by the order, and the remaining two are permanent residents of another country. Amazon has also identified 10 dependents of those employees born in one of the nations targeted by the order.
One of the employees, Blackwell-Hawkins wrote, is a Libyan-born senior attorney who's been a U.K. citizen "for many years." The employee was planning to travel to the U.S. for business in February, but was told by the company to cancel her plans.
Amazon also has seven Iranian job candidates with job offers who are all citizens of either Germany, Canada or Australia and could be banned for entry into the U.S. The company is "assessing alternatives" that could include basing those candidates outside the U.S.
Expedia's declaration, filed by company General Counsel Robert Dzielak, focuses on two employees who were born in one of the seven countries and cannot travel outside the U.S. because of the order.
The travel company also pointed to the impact on its customers, which are spread across the globe. At least 100,000 from the seven countries have used Expedia since it launched online travel in 1996.
Some customer situations are more immediate. More than 1,000 people with passports from one of the seven countries have booked trips that include flights to, from or through the U.S.
Amazon's big push to produce or acquire the rights to original movies, which yielded seven Oscar nominations, has also been affected by Trump's executive order, Blackwell-Hawkins wrote.
Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi, whose film "The Salesman" is in the running for best foreign motion picture, won't be able to attend the Academy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles next month. Amazon Studios distributes the film .
Part of the order's ripple effect results from lack of clarity, according to the company.
Amazon said it was "unclear" whether it meant that people born in the covered countries, regardless of their actual citizenship, were also affected.
It was also unclear whether dual nationals of the named countries and other nations were targeted by the order as well. "In order to comply with the order and to ensure the safety of our employees, we assume the Executive Order covers both scenarios," Amazon wrote.
