Category: The Opposition

Unbound Philanthropy: an example of what we are up against…

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

…..and why the average American trying to maintain our culture and country through immigration control has a hard time fighting the battle.  The other side is rich and connected to big business (offshore money too!).

Yesterday as I searched for more information on the Migration Policy Institute, an organization that pretends to be a balanced nonpartisan think tank which just this week put out a report that goes after Sheriff’s in some counties overseeing the 287g program,  I came upon Unbound Philanthropy.  It is one of those private foundations used by the super wealthy to channel their excess funds (avoiding taxes by so doing) to pet charities and political projects.

In this case the rich guy is William Reeves of Hawaii:

William Reeves is a director and co-founder of BlueCrest Capital Management Ltd. Based in London, BlueCrest manages investments for a predominantly institutional investor base across 15 diverse funds. Until April 2000, when he left to establish BlueCrest, Mr. Reeves was a Managing Director at J.P. Morgan in London and head of macro strategy and trading within the proprietary trading group. Prior to that, Mr. Reeves was a fund manager at Salomon Brothers Asset Management Limited and at Fisher Francis Trees and Watts, with responsibility for managing leveraged capital. He has also worked for JP Morgan New York where, from 1991 to 1993, he was a Vice President in charge of a team managing the company’s leveraged multi-currency proprietary investment portfolio. Mr. Reeves is a US Trustee of the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation. He holds an MA in Philosophy from New York University and a BA in English from Yale University. Mr. Reeves was born in Honolulu and raised in Richmond, Virginia where his parents were both educators.

Check out Unbound Philanthropy’s most recent Form 990.  This is a private foundation with a net worth approaching $100 million (note offshore accounts).  In 2008 Mr. Reeves donated $2,619,583 to the foundation (probably reducing his tax liability) to his mostly political projects.  He passed most of that  money through this foundation to a list of projects that include (among others):

The Tides Center (money scrubber supreme):  $250,000

Southern Poverty Law Center:  $150,000

American Immigration Law Foundation: $150,000

Center for American Progress (LOL! Pushing back against Hate Project):  $46,000

And, it looks like the big winner is the International Rescue Committee with three grants:  $150,000, $200,000, and $212,000

On their website they brag about many more recent grants, including my favorite:

Mr. Reeves gave $85,000 in 2010 to Active Voice a San Francisco social change advocacy group to promote that damn propaganda film on Shelbyville, TN.

Also in 2010 he passed $500,000 through the Tides Foundation.  In 2009 he gave $150,000 to Media Matters (George Soros) and $240,000 to the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition (ahhhhh!).   And, this is how I found Unbound Philanthropy in the first place, they (rich Mr. Reeves) gave the Migration Policy Institute $95,000 to study amnesty for “undocumented youth and women.”

It’s all legal of course, but the next time you hear whining from the pro-migration forces that this is all about the poor and the downtrodden, remember it isn’t.  It is about politics, about new immigrants as Democratic voters, and it’s about cheap labor for big business (like the meatpackers) and nannies and gardeners for rich people.

Just a reminder that David North of the Center for Immigration Studies summed it up well when he attended a recent meeting of the Migration Policy Institute:

It is useful to note that the pro-migration advocates, though allied with each other, come in three different groupings. There are the employers, who want lower wages; there are the ethnic organizations who say, in effect, “Let My People In”; and then there are the intellectuals [ed: read Leftists!], represented Thursday at a session of the foundation-supported Migration Policy Institute.

So our side (the immigration control side) is up against the big money and the hard left political machine using the average do-gooders and  immigrants as their foils.

A final question for Mr. Reeves:  If you are so interested in promoting social change (aka the redistribution of wealth), why not redistribute all your holdings now directly to the refugees and other poor immigrants being dropped off in our cities and towns by the US State Department and their federal contractors.   If the social justice Marxist one-worlders you are supporting win the political war in the US, they will be taking it from you or your heirs anyway.

Migration Policy Institute–more than a research outfit

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update: Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies has some insiteful comments about MPI’s 287g report at National Review On Line, here.  Hat tip: Judy.

Yesterday two people sent me the latest “study” from the benign-looking Migration Policy Institute. The press release on the report is entitled, “ICE’s 287(g) Immigration Enforcement Program Is Not Targeted Primarily at Serious Offenders, New MPI Study Finds,” and attempts to show that some jurisdictions involved in the 287g program (that is the federal program which authorizes local law enforcement to apprehend illegal aliens) are stopping illegals for petty crimes and traffic violations and thus in their view abusing the law.   It is a study that looks balanced, but in fact advances a political agenda.

The Migration Policy Institute  (MPI) does just that—it advances an open-borders agenda (as well as advocates for more legal immigration—more refugees and more asylees).

I had never really looked more deeply into the organization, but did just now because this report irritated me so much—not what it says, but that over and over again we are led to believe there is no agenda behind supposedly objective studies like this one and gullible readers, especially reporters, take this stuff as the unvarnished truth.

In 30 minutes I found some of the following information:

The first thing I always check is a group’s Form 990 (virtually all of these pro-migration advocacy groups are non-profits and are required to file a Form 990, some do so in a more timely fashion than others).  Here is the most recent Form 990 for MPI–2008.  There is no reason they shouldn’t have 2009 available.

The most interesting thing to me is that their income went from just over $4 million in the prior year and then jumped to a whopping $9.6 million in the next year.   Could it be that with Obama’s election they were gearing up to push amnesty through Congress?

Unfortunately other than the government portion of their funding which is $443,000, one is not given access to their funders.  I don’t care what end of the political spectrum a group is on, but its major funders should be identified on their public Form 990—a good project for an enterprising Tea Party oriented Congressman!

Like so many of these Washington groups ostensibly helping the world’s poor and downtrodden, one of the biggest portions of their expenses is for all the 6-figure salaries paid to employees.  Examining the Form 990, one sees that one of those receiving six-figures from MPI is Doris Meissner.  I told you about her here recently as she was quoted supporting the “free market idea” of human trafficking and smuggling Somalis across our border:

Doris Meissner, former commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, said applicants can wait in camps for years with no assurance they’ll get into the country of their choice.

“Sometimes they decide that smuggling is the best shot,” said Meissner, now a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington. [You see what I mean about reporters, they eat this up, “nonpartisan think tank” my foot—-ed]

When I scrolled down that Form 990 all I had to see was a $50,000 grant MPI gave to the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition that year to know who they were.  That is a very far Left, highly political, open borders and pro-migration and pro-Muslim immigration advocacy group we have written about on many occasions.

And, interestingly, I didn’t know that MPI was actually mentioned in an article about the hotel in Nashville that canceled a meeting I attended in May 2009.  After the Lowe’s Vanderbilt hotel canceled a conference days before it opened, we all went to another “welcoming” hotel and proceeded to have a good meeting.  Here is ACT for America’s account of what happened.  Here is Judy’s post.

So, just by giving TIRRC a $50,000 grant I knew there was nothing nonpartisan and balanced about MPI.  Just one more of George Soros money laundering outfits?

When you can’t figure out who exactly is funding an organization one can search by just googling some of the likely candidates.  For example, I typed in Migration Policy Institute and the Tides Foundation or Tides Center (the hard Left’s premier money laundering operation), MPI and George Soros, and then Discover the Networks is also a really good first option.

Below are some links to give you a better idea of who MPI is:

Discover the Networks, here.

MPI and George Soros here ( here is the source for that story).  Soros operation is called the “shadow party.”

Working with the big money government contractor, International Rescue Committee, here for a PR campaign for more tax dollars going to Iraqi refugees (actually it won’t go directly to the refugees it will pass through the contractors so the head of the IRC can make his $400,000 plus salary).

I told you about this meeting hosted by MPI (here) where “experts” admitted that black men are hurt the most when immigrant numbers are high, but that doesn’t matter to the elite and highly educated at MPI.

Wikipedia reports that MPI gets funding from international interests through the United Nations, here.  Heck, you can see all their international funders at their website, here.

And, to really see what grassroots immigration control groups are up against, see UNBOUND PHILANTHROPY, here.

O.K. so this is taking me more than a half hour—UNBOUND has a boatload of information on its Form 990!  Will have to write a separate post!  [Update: Here is my post on Unbound Philanthropy.]

Bottomline, MPI is not an unbiased, nonpartisan, independent think tank.  It is an open borders advocate and a pro-migration organization. So please read any “study” or report that they release as propaganda to advance their agenda.

Pro-migration forces admit black males hurt most by high immigration numbers

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The Center for Immigration Studies, David North, reported on a meeting of “pro-migration forces” (that is a much better definition than the usual “open borders” gang I’ve been using), last week where they were trying to figure out where they go now that Amnesty is dead for the next two years.

Check out this shocking admission reported by North (emphasis mine):

On display Thursday was a gently stated, appropriately nuanced discussion of how to deal with immigration policy. The principal speaker was Harry J. Holzer, a former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor, and now a Professor of Public Policy at Georgetown University.

[….]

Holzer is frankly pro-immigration, but is honest enough to admit that it can be hard on less-skilled resident workers, and particularly black males. He speaks of, among other things, increasing the costs for illegal immigrants, and increasing the benefits for those in legal status, as part of a scheme to restore some order in the labor market. He is an enthusiastic supporter of high-skilled immigration and mentioned no adverse impacts on high-skilled resident workers, which I think is a mistake.

Not only do employers benefit, but so do white-collar, well-educated, rich people, who get nannies and restaurant workers!  Ahhhhh! And we have been led to believe this is all about humanitarianism!

He is also honest enough to acknowledge that it is not only employers who benefit from low-wage workers, it is also consumers generally, including, he said, to a white-collar, well-educated audience, “people like you.” He spoke of how international migration increased the supply of nannies and people who work in “the restaurants that you like.”

North also clearly described the three branches of the pro-migration forces:

It is useful to note that the pro-migration advocates, though allied with each other, come in three different groupings. There are the employers, who want lower wages; there are the ethnic organizations who say, in effect, “Let My People In”; and then there are the intellectuals [ed: read Leftists!], represented Thursday at a session of the foundation-supported Migration Policy Institute.

Read it all!

Tyson’s Shelbyville plant gets another bomb threat

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update January 18th: Arrest made in the graffiti incident—bored twentysomething confesses,  bomb threats appear to be stunts too, but those responsible have not yet been identified, according to this report.

Update: Jerry Gordon got the scoop and posted it at New English Review. An arrest was made today in this case.   I’m sure we will have more news tomorrow on the motives of this Tysons employee.

I didn’t even tell you about the first  bomb threat, here, but over the weekend the controversial Shelbyville, TN chicken plant got another bomb threat.

This is what News Channel 5 from Nashville is reporting:

SHELBYVILLE, Tenn.- For the second time in less than a month, a terror threat is made at a mid-state plant.

Shelbyville Police say a bomb threat was made Saturday night at the Tyson Plant. They say the threat was written in graffiti on a wall inside the plant.

This is not the first time this has happened. At the end of December, someone also used graffiti to make threats against employees at the plant.

For the earlier graffiti (reportedly “all americans must die”) terror threat that the feds were called in for, go here.  Tysons has still not released what exactly was written in that pre-Christmas event, nor whether a woman’s bathroom had been set on fire.

Meanwhile, the ‘Welcome to Shelbyville’ propaganda film has been selected by the US State Department to be shown around the world.

The documentary film is meant to show how a southern redneck Bible-belt town can learn to live with Somali refugees who have come to work at Tyson Foods.   I told you more about that Saturday, here.

Last evening I happened to see a Fox News critical report of this State Department program that is apparently sending films around the globe that are showing the world our dirty linen at a huge cost to taxpayers.  Searching around for a link to this story, the only thing I found quickly was this AP story by none other than Matthew Lee.  Longtime readers will remember Lee as the reporter who each month at the end of the Bush Administration pounded Bush and the State Department on not bringing enough Iraqi refugees to the US fast enough.

Here is what Lee says about the State Department’s multi-million dollar propaganda film series of which ‘Welcome to Shelbyville’ is a part.

The “American Documentary Showcase” series is funded and organized by the State Department’s Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs. It brings “award-winning contemporary American documentaries to audiences around the world to offer a view of American society and culture as seen by independent documentary filmmakers,” according to its website.

[….]

The department said that this year’s selections, chosen by the University Film and Video Association and independent international group of filmmakers, educators and students, explore topics ranging from civil rights and the treatment of military veterans to environmentalism and freedom of the press.

More later, I don’t think this issue is going away.

Jordan: Trees or refugees that is the question

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I just love it when two great missions of the political Left come in conflict.  This story from Jordan captured my interest this morning.  Environmental activists in the Middle East (I didn’t know they had any!) are trying to stop the destruction of an important forest ecosystem.

Turns out that one of the pressures on Jordan, its environment, and its water supply is the large numbers of Palestinian and Iraqi refugees living there.

From the Green Prophet :

As well as the threats posed to local ecosystems and economic activities, the Halt Ajloun Deforestation campaign say that the danger to Ajloun Forest from the new development has wider significance. Jordan as a country already has less than 1% forest cover and suffers extensively from a lack of water. It has a high population density for such an arid country (partly resulting from the large numbers of Palestinian and Iraqi refugees living there), and has been named one of the ten most water-scarce nations on the planet.

Save the Middle East—bring refugees to America!

So since the Sierra Club and other US environmental groups have become either outright in favor of open borders, or dead silent on the issue, we could just take all those refugees off Jordan’s hands and thus save Jordan’s environment.

As for the US environment, well, we have already noted that Somalis like reader Abdi, here, thinks America is pretty empty and they can just fill it right up by taking over and having lots of babies.

This is what I said about the Sierra Club most recently:

Why has the Sierra Club led a campaign to keep our borders open? I believe it is because Carl Pope, their longtime head honcho, is first and foremost a Socialist (maybe a Marxist) one-worlder.  Longtime advocates of closing our borders have horror stories to tell about how Pope has over the years fought any effort by Sierra Club members to get into the immigration issue.  In fact, immigration control groups like NumbersUSA,* FAIR, and the Center for Immigration Studies were initially created to counter the pro-immigration (through silence) bias of the major environmental groups.   Now, of course, they have a much broader mission.

I did a lot of research on Pope, here is just one story (with links to previous posts on Pope), he sits on the notorious Apollo Alliance board and is good buddies with Marxist Van Jones.

Maybe the Green Prophet should research that story!