Astute political observers have heard of the big non-profits (NGO) funding all the insane causes, some of them violent, that most Americans disagree with. Arbella Advisors is one. The Atlantic calls them “the left’s dark money manager.” The massive $860 million Bay Area-based Tides Foundation, the social justice warriors that go after fossil fuels and spend millions funding migrant “narratives” to convince us plebs that there is no migrant crisis, is another. Old money at the Rockefeller Foundation and everyone’s favorite political donor, George Soros, has spent untold thousands on promoting a doctrinal acceptance of Western government COVID policies to funding Free Palestine activists on college campuses this month.
Jeff Bezos’ ex-wife, MacKenzie Scott, is rifling through $640 million of her divorce settlement and giving it to NGOs that support Democratic Party causes, like open borders via the Immigration Equality organization, which focuses on asylum for the LGBTQ+ living elsewhere.
These are the big names.
There are smaller ones. Dozens of them. And on the immigration front, they all donate to a side of the issue most Americans disagree with.
We all agree that we have a migrant crisis on our hands, according to a Gallup survey in February. A record-high 55 percent of adults, up eight points from last year, said “large numbers of immigrants entering the United States illegally” is a “critical threat.” The prior high was 50 percent in 2004.
An April 24 poll by Axios showed that a majority were in favor of mass deportations now.
Some 64 percent told Gallup in another survey that they want immigration to decrease. Only eight percent said they wanted more migrants.
But all of those groups above fund the opposite.
Like the Tides Foundation in San Francisco, influential Bay Area billionaire Michael Moritz, made rich by his investments at Sequoia Capital, is a big donor to the preferred progressive causes of our times. In Buckingham Palace, the Wales-born venture capitalist is known as “Sir Michael Moritz” after being granted knighthood in 2013 for “promoting British economic interests and philanthropy.”
I don’t know what British economic interests he has advanced, but his San Francisco-based philanthropic organization, Crankstart Foundation, sends money to groups that benefit from what even NPR pollsters refer to as an invasion.
Sequoia Capital made a lot of its money from China investments. It helped make TikTok a household name. TikTok helps migrants with maps into the country. They’ll be promoting immigrant fast-track naturalization and voting soon enough.
Crankstart Foundation, like many of America’s largest NGOs and national philanthropic organizations such as Catholic Charities, is one of the enablers in this crisis. Its donations go to immigrant activist groups that are at odds with American popular opinion.
Moritz is not a top Silicon Valley Democrat donor – he donated just $4.5 million in the 2020 election, all of it to Democrats – but Crankstart gives millions more of his Sequoia Capital profits to progressive causes that help Democrats.
Like these guys: The American Immigration Council, granted $1.3 million over the next three years, based on Crankstart’s 2022 IRS Form 990-PF. One thing the Council does is pay lawyers to litigate against laws they deem anti-immigrants. That includes Biden’s “newcomers,” not people who have been here for 10 years.
Hannah Fried’s organization, All Voting is Local, got $2 million from Crankstart. Fried is a longtime Democratic operative. She worked on the 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign. She favors mail-in ballots, counting ballots after election day, and says voter ID is discriminatory.
Over 80 percent of Americans, including over 60 percent of Democrats, favor voter ID, according to a Monmouth University survey. A Gallup poll found the same thing. All Voting is Local seems focused on swing state voters’ rights, foremost. That’s likely because they believe registering new immigrant voters is key to a Democratic Party victory. This has been a long-held mission of the activist left.
Crankstart donated $4.5 million to the Immigration Legal Resource Center. They help migrants win asylum claims, get specialty visas like the easy-to-get U Visas (for crime victims) and T Visas (human trafficking victims), and defend against deportation. ILRC was founded by San Francisco academic Bill Ong Hing. He has long bemoaned the “Euro-centric immigration” of the U.S. and called for more diversity and inclusion of migrants. Nancy Pelosi is on its board.
Crankstart did not return requests for comment. Most of its donations are apolitical and local.
A poll in December 2017 found only 12 percent of Democrats favored building a wall on the Mexican border. By December 2023, it tripled to 32 percent.
If you ever wondered why the country is going in directions against the interests of the majority, look no further than the foundations of America’s wealthiest people – and notice the NGOs they fund. Crankstart is part of a chorus of them, handing out millions to the immigration fight, a fight many in the Democratic Party believe will garner them more voters.
Reprinted with permission from the DC Journal by Kenneth Rapoza.
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AMAC or AMAC Action.