Rep. Chris Cannon (R-Utah) has come under sharp criticism by CIS and other immigration restrictionist groups for his pro-immigration positions. According to Cannon, “Tanton set up groups like CIS and FAIR to take an analytical approach to immigration from a Republican point of view so that they can give cover to Republicans who oppose immigration for other reasons.” (5)
Executive director Krikorian, who appears regularly before congressional committees discussing immigration policy, describes himself and CIS as being “conservative” but as not belonging to the “high-immigration Right” as represented by the Wall Street Journal. According to Krikorian, “The high-immigration Right works hand-in-glove with the anti-American Left.” Like many anti-immigrant groups, CIS believes that Corporate America and leftists share a common agenda of open borders, albeit for different reasons. (6)
Funding
Early funding for CIS was channeled through U.S. Inc, a nonprofit established and still directed by John Tanton, who was one of the cofounders of the Federation of American Immigration Reform (FAIR). (3)
Oh yes, the WSJ has much more credibility on the issue.../s
* Named as a key member of the Open Borders Lobby in the pamphlet The Open Borders Lobby and the Nation's Security After 9/11, written by William Hawkins and Erin Anderson
* Seeks to legalize all illegal aliens currently in the U.S.
* Objected to the creation of a National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, which monitored individuals from countries with known terrorist links
* Opposed the Clear Law Enforcement for Criminal Alien Removal, which sought to empower state and local police to enforce Federal immigration laws
* Receives funding from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; the Ford Foundation; and the Open Society Institute
The Washington, D.C.-based National Immigration Forum (NIF) claims that its objective is "to embrace and uphold America's tradition as a nation of immigrants. The Forum advocates and builds public support for public policies that welcome immigrants and refugees and that are fair and supportive to newcomers in our country." It claims to head a coalition of more than 250 national organizations and several thousand local groups. The NIF was founded in 1982 by Dale Frederick "Rick" Swartz, who had directed the immigrant rights project at the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights and who had worked closely with the National Lawyers' Guild. Harriet Schaffer Rabb, Ford Foundation Trustee and Co-Director of the Immigration Law Clinic at Columbia School of Law, played a major role in helping Swartz found the new group. Swartz continued his work to secure asylum for Haitian and Central American refugees, to legalize the status of millions of other immigrants and to oppose the English Only movement, which seeks to make English the official language of the United States.
The NIF website is festooned with American flags and the Statue of Liberty. However, its political agenda, personnel and funding make it a component of the leftwing Open Borders Lobby whose ideology is hostile to both flag and nation. Frank Sharry is the current Executive Director of the NIF. Prior to taking over this position from the retiring Swartz in 1990, Sharry had been executive director of Centro Presente, a local agency involved in the Central American sanctuary movement in the greater Boston area that opposed the policies of the Reagan Administration policy to combat the spread of Communism in the region. In 1994, Sharry took a leave of absence from the Forum to serve as Deputy Campaign Manager of Taxpayers Against Proposition 187, a California Initiative to deny social welfare benefits to the state's illegal aliens.
The United States already has the most liberal immigration policy of any major country in the world. Each year, the U. S. grants permanent resident status to between 700,000 and 900,000 legal immigrants. But this not enough for the NIF. The NIF solution to the immigration problem is to "legalize" all illegal aliens currently in the United States who have no criminal records and to dramatically increase the number of visas available for those who want to come into America either to rejoin family members or to work. The idea is to make legal immigration to America so easy that no one will have to resort to illegal means to enter the country. The NIF is particularly keen on opening the borders to unskilled, low-income workers, making them eligible for welfare and social service programs. Under this scheme, the country would be importing a new underclass. The NIF does not project the number of new immigrants this "comprehensive reform" would generate. The NIF believes there are eight million illegal immigrants in the country eligible for amnesty, and it would not be unreasonable to expect the annual number of "legal" immigrants to at least double under their relaxed process.
While advancing its own plan of reform, the NIF is also working to undo the mild reforms enacted in 1996. The NIF considers the 1996 reforms "the harshest crackdown on the rights and opportunities of immigrants in 70 years." It particularly cites the attempt to expedite deportations of illegal aliens (who have no right to be in the country in the first place), the deportation of non-citizens who commit "minor" crimes, the denial of welfare and social service programs to illegal immigrants and attempts to track the arrival and departure of every person crossing our land borders and develop an identification system.
The NIF's opposition to tracking those who enter the United States extends even to those arriving from countries with known terrorist links. The NIF strongly objected to the creation of a National Security Entry-Exit Registration System. The plan as proposed by Attorney General John Ashcroft would apply only to nationals of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, and Syria who are here on non-immigrant visas; certain non-immigrant visa-holders from other countries that are determined to pose an "elevated national security risk" by the State Department and the INS; and certain foreign national non-immigrant visa-holders in whom the Justice Department has a special interest. Fingerprints and photos will be taken from these individuals, along with other personal data, when they present themselves for admission to the U.S. The fingerprints will be run through intelligence and criminal records databases to identify people who are wanted criminals or suspected terrorists and keep them from entering the country. After 30 days in the United States and then on an annual basis, certain non-immigrant aliens will be required to present themselves at an INS office. The INS will conduct a review of the alien to ensure that he is complying with the terms of his visa. To Frank Sharry, "these heavy-handed tactics seem more like the old Soviet Union and South Africa."
This objection is interesting because one of the arguments the NIF uses in support of its plan to legalize the illegals and expand legal immigration is "by providing more legal channels for persons who want to come in the future, so that immigrants who now come outside of legal channels can be properly identified and screened." So which is their real concern? In the past, the NIF has objected to burdensome questioning of those seeking to become naturalized citizens, including requiring that applicants account for their residences in the U.S. and travel outside of the U.S. in the last five years, and what organizations the applicant was a member. The National Security Entry-Exit Registration System registered a total of 83,519 people before it was ended on December 2, 2003. Some of those registered were deported, usually for overstaying visas.
The NIF is a sponsoring organization of the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride Coalition, which seeks to secure ever-expanding rights and civil liberties protections for undocumented workers, amnesty for illegal immigrants, and policy reforms that diminish or eliminate restrictions on immigration.
The NIF also opposed the Clear Law Enforcement for Criminal Alien Removal (CLEAR) Act, H.R. 2671 which would empower state and local police to enforce federal immigration laws. And the NIF has voiced the same litany of complaints about tighter security and broader investigations pertaining to immigrants since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks as other left-wing groups.
The NIF endorsed the Civil Liberties Restoration Act (CLRA) of 2004, which was introduced by Democratic Senators Ted Kennedy, Patrick Leahy, Russell Feingold, Richard Durbin, and Jon Corzine, and Democratic Representatives Howard Berman and William Delahunt. The CLRA was designed to roll back, in the name of protecting civil liberties, vital national-security policies that had been adopted after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Moreover, the NIF was a signatory to a November 1, 2001 document characterizing the 9/11 attacks as a legal matter to be addressed by criminal-justice procedures rather than military means. Ascribing the hijackers' motives to alleged social injustices against which they were protesting, this document explained that "security and justice are mutually reinforcing goals that ultimately depend upon the promotion of all human rights for all people," and called on the United States "to promote fundamental rights around the world."
The NIF has received funding from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; the Ford Foundation; George Soros's Open Society Institute.; the Carnegie Corporation of New York; the Fannie Mae Foundation; and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
In 2001, the National Immigration Forum reported revenues of $2,046,357, expenses of $1,726,885 and held assets worth: $1,826,047.
This profile was adapted from the article "The Open Borders Lobby and the Nation's Security after 9/11," written by William Hawkins and Erin Anderson, and published by FrontPageMagazine.com on January 21, 2004.
http://www.discoverthenetwork.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6506
So you prefer a Soros funded group to one funded by John Tanton? Plus anyone can write an op-ed for the WSJ. Carville and Begala have both had op-eds in the WSJ.
I wonder why you take a Soros group's word for anything. Does it just fit your agenda in this case or are you a Soros supporter?