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The mossy courtyard of a gothic revival church in Brooklyn has little in common with a Microsoft office, but Silas Berkowitz's conscience has led him here.
A former employee of the technology giant, he now pickets its New York stores.
Silas, 29, is part of a movement challenging companies like Microsoft, Palantir and Amazon over their ties to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.
The agency tracks, detains and deports undocumented immigrants — assisted by cloud computing and data processing services purchased from some of America's largest technology companies.
As President Donald Trump's administration has stepped up the removal of undocumented immigrants and separated families at the border, these firms are being accused of complicity by a new source: faith groups, following in the footsteps of immigration activists.
In the First Unitarian Congregational Society's hall, Silas runs non-violent direct-action or civil disobedience training for a non-denominational group called Close the Camps.
The sessions help people decide if they're willing to be arrested protesting ICE's presence in New York and its detention centres, and if so, how to do it as safely as possible.
In September, he was part of an action where dozens of people were detained at a Manhattan Microsoft store to spotlight the company's relationship with ICE.
"We think a major point of leverage here is to take on the big companies that are complicit," he said.
A day of mourning
In mid-August, protesters filled a bright, corporate Amazon book store in New York City with prayer shawls. They recited the Kaddish, a Jewish mourner's prayer, and read from the Book of Lamentations.
The protest fell on Tisha B'Av, when Jews mourn the ancient destruction of Jerusalem's temples.
Rabbi Salem Pearce, a leader with the liberal rabbis' group T'ruah that supported the day of action, said these vigils intended to make the connection between historical tragedies and the situation on the US southern border.
"We see ourselves in in them."
In the United States, religious groups of all denominations have long been active on social issues.
Today's anti-technology actions echo past church-based boycotts of Nestle products after its baby formula scandal, according to Kenneth Wald, a religion and politics scholar at Florida University. Or protests by faith leaders against the maker of Napalm maker Dow Chemical during the Vietnam War.
"These days, it's particularly likely to be the kind of thing that's done by left wing church groups," he said.
While churches, mosques and synagogues have offered shelter to undocumented immigrants at risk of deportation, the harrowing stories of child separation and images of overcrowded detention centres that emerged over the US summer stirred new outrage.
Rabbi Pearce suggested today's movement is shaped by a deeper understanding of ICE's surveillance capabilities, and the companies that she believes enable it.
This awareness has been forged by advocacy groups such as the Latino and Chicano-led Mijente and its #NoTechForIce campaign.
Mijente organiser Jacinta Gonzalez said the technology focus came after community questions: "People kept asking us … how did ICE know where I live if I've never had a traffic ticket and never had anything registered at this address?"
A 2018 Mijente investigation reported Amazon's cloud services arm hosts immigration data for the Department of Homeland Security.
It alleges Palantir also built ICE case management software, among other tools, allowing it to build immigrant profiles from public and private data.
Microsoft, for its part, has claimed its contracts enable ICE "to process data on edge devices or utilize deep learning capabilities to accelerate facial recognition and identification".
The code database GitHub, which is owned by Microsoft, also provides a server to ICE.
A reputational risk
For now, few of the technology companies that work with ICE have abandoned their contracts.
The chief executive of GitHub Nat Friedman has stated he strongly disagrees with the Trump administration's immigration stance, but that cancelling a purchase will not change its policies.
Satya Nadella, head of Microsoft, has called the policy of separating immigrant children from their families "abhorrent". But he maintained the company is only supporting ICE systems such as email and document management.
These brands still face a reputational challenge: University students have protested campus recruitment drives from the likes of Amazon and Palantir, and the latter has been dropped as sponsor from several technology companies.
The growing willingness of some Jewish groups to draw direct parallels with the Nazi regime's use of IBM technology is particularly fraught.
It's common now to see protest banners that read "Amazon: Never again means #NoTechForIce" or "IBM sold tech to Nazis. Palantir sells tech to ICE".
Companies like Microsoft in particular have cultivated a genial public image that is being questioned.
"I think they're trying to have it both ways," said Silas, the former Microsoft employee-turned organiser. "We want to make them own this and admit that they are complicit."
Hallie Berkson-Gold is an organiser with Never Again Action — a Jewish-led group that advocates for the abolishment of ICE as well as protection for undocumented immigrants.
She, along with many other progressive Jews, say they are willing to use the memory of the Holocaust to support immigrants and community-led campaigns against the likes of Amazon.
It was a spark, she said, when Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called the immigration facilities concentration camps.
"Many politicians, many of whom were not Jewish, decided to take offense at the language used to describe the camps," Hallie said.
"We don't care if you're offended by the name of the camp. We just want you to be offended by what's taking place inside of them."
Religious belief makes sense as a path to this sort of activism, according to Mijente's Jacinta. People begin their "resistance" in their own communities.
"This administration has really woken up a lot of groups … [and it] also provides historic moments of reflection that show us why our resistance is so important," she said.
Tech and the teachings of God
Community histories of oppression and immigration have led many religious activists to take up this fight against technology companies and ICE, but for some, it's always been there in the text.
Leah Sarat, who studies religion and immigration at Arizona State University, said the multi-denominational groups advocating for immigrant rights cite biblical passages about welcoming the stranger.
There is also growing awareness, she suggested, about the indigeneity of Central Americans who are trying to reach the United States.
"I'm seeing also broader questions about … what right do we have to keep people out of a country [when] we ourselves, many of us are immigrants?"
For her part, Rabbi Pearce finds lessons in Jewish teachings for the current struggle against ICE, as well as Amazon, Palantir and Microsoft.
She described her view of the story of Sodom — the city God tried to destroy for, among a litany of wrongdoing, turning away the stranger.
"The rabbis of the Talmud ask, 'what was the sin in the city of Sodom?'" she explained.
"It's extreme xenophobia and inhospitality that the citizens of Sodom demonstrate.
Amazon and Palantir were contacted for comment.