Philanthropists Fuel Anti-Immigrant Bigotry
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When well-known philanthropists give money to national anti-immigrant groups it gives a new twist to the axiom “throwing good money after bad.” The result is increased discrimination and violence against immigrants and their families.
Controversial anti-immigrant leader John Tanton used to brag that from 1983 until 1986 famed financial leader and philanthropist Warren Buffet made yearly gifts of $90,000 to his organization, U.S. Inc. While Buffet is thought of as a man who donates selflessly to the public good he is also remembered as supporting bigotry.
Buffet, having attended several of John Tanton’s events, raises the question of if he was in the room when Tanton mused that “As Whites see their power and control over their lives declining, will they simply go quietly into the night? Or will there be an explosion? … Perhaps this is the first instance in which those with their pants up are going to get caught by those with their pants down?” Tanton used Buffet’s support to grow the modern day anti-immigrant movement which has torn communities and working families apart.
Recent reports have surfaced that large donations to Tanton’s network are not a thing of the past. Philanthropists with deep financial pockets are supporting some of the nation’s most controversial anti-immigrant organizations—some with ties to political extremists including white nationalists.
A blogpost gaining momentum over at ValleyWag is reporting that Facebook Board of Director, Peter Thiel, may have donated up to $1 million dollars to NumbersUSA. In 1997, NumbersUSA’s executive director Roy Beck spoke at the national conference of the white nationalist Council of Conservative Citizens, the direct descendant of the white citizen’s councils of the 1960s. NumbersUSA was founded under the financial and administrative umbrella of John Tanton’s Michigan-based U.S. Inc.
The Center for New Community is now reporting that, in a September 2008 fundraising letter, FAIR (Federation for American Immigration Reform) announced that “leading national philanthropist” Robert W. Wilson offered to match the donations of FAIR members. According to The Chronicle, Wilson, a retired hedge-fund manager, establishes “long relationships with organizations before bestowing a large gift.” Wilson is a Trustee of the Environmental Defense Fund.
These relationships, built by Wilson and Thiel, not only tarnished their respective images as national civic leaders but politically aligned them with individuals who espouse bigotry, bizarre notions of “race science,” and anti-Catholic bigotry.
In 2007, Wilson gave $22.5 million to the New York Roman Catholic Archdiocese. There is a big difference between the Catholic Church and FAIR. FAIR has been listed as a hate group by the civil rights organization the Southern Poverty Law Center, alongside the Ku Klux Klan and the American National Socialist Workers Party. FAIR staffer Rosanna Pulido once said of the Catholic Church, “What better way to fill your pews and fill your offering coffers than with inviting in and giving sanctuary to illegal aliens? . . . What is being passed off right now by the Catholic Church is not Catholicism. It has nothing to do with Christianity or the Bible.”
Money isn’t the root of all evil, bigotry is. And philanthropists like Thiel and Wilson have no business lending it their financial support.
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