A group of employees from Whole Foods signed a letter Monday asking that its parent company Amazon.com Inc. break all ties with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The letter by the grocery chain, which was acquired by Amazon for $13.7 billion in 2017, was signed by a group of present and former employees of Wholes Foods calling themselves “Whole Worker.” The group wrote that it’s “attempting to organize and unionize under the dystopian rule of Amazon.”

Specifically what it’s asking for is that Amazon stop providing cloud computing technology to the data analytics company Palantir Technologies Inc., which helps ICE track immigrants. The group asked Amazon to “cease all business with Palantir and any other company involved in the continued oppression of marginalized groups.”

“Palantir provides software that helps ICE in the deportation of undocumented people,” said the letter. “Undocumented people must be welcomed with compassion and treated like the political and economic asylum seekers they are.’

The group goes on to say in 2011 Palantir was part of a plan to spy on labor unions and activists. “As workers and activists actively organizing and unionizing, we see this as further proof that Amazon has no plans on respecting the rights of workers,” it said.

On top of that, Whole Worker claimed responsibility for a leaked video that appeared on John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight show. The video has been called a tutorial in “union-busting” and is distributed to Amazon employees.

The release of the letter follows some of amount of mayhem in New York City over the weekend in which dozens of people were arrested for protesting against Amazon’s links with ICE. Hundreds of protesters stood outside Amazon Books in Manhattan on Sunday, while parts of the city’s West Side Highway had to be closed off.

For some time now, Amazon and other technology companies have been under fire for providing surveillance technology to the U.S. government. Last year Amazon came under pressure after it was revealed it was selling facial recognition technology, called “Rekognition,” to law enforcement. Microsoft Corp. was also criticized for its involvement with ICE.

“Workers that control the levers inside Amazon must make this machine stop and turn in another direction,” wrote the Whole Worker group. “Bodies inside this machine are being mangled as it tramples on our homes, destroying families and communities.”

Photo: Charles Edward Miller/Flickr