How a Noble Vision Lost Its Way
WASHINGTON (March 1, 2011) – A new report from the Center for Immigration Studies shows that the Carnegie Corporation, a grant-making foundation whose mandate is to “promote the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding,” has veered sharply away from that mission with dogmatic and intolerant efforts to influence U.S. immigration policy.
Titled “The Carnegie Corporation and Immigration: How a Noble Vision Lost Its Way,” the report shows that despite the stated commitment of Carnegie President Vartan Gregorian to “augment the sources of knowledge that may be drawn upon to inform American leaders and citizens about the issues on the nation’s agenda,” Carnegie funding on immigration – at least $57 million over the past decade – has been driven by rigid ideology and a simplistic refusal to acknowledge immigration’s costs and strains as well as its beauties and benefits.
The report's author, Pulitzer Prize winner Jerry Kammer, hails Carnegie’s funding of efforts to register naturalized immigrants and involve them in the political life of the nation. But he notes that Carnegie also funds such organizations as America’s Voice and the Center for New Community, which have sought to demonize those who disagree with Carnegie's views on immigration and exclude them from public debate. Kammer questions how such funding squares with Vartan Gregorian’s declaration that philanthropic organizations have a moral responsibility to ensure that their power “is used openly, wisely and responsibly in upholding society’s values rather than subverting them.'
Kammer concludes, 'It is a loss for American democracy that Carnegie’s simplistic and ideologically bound approach to immigration policy has justified its funding of campaigns to smear those who dare to suggest more cautious immigration policy.'
The report is online at http://www.cis.org/carnegie-immigration .
<# # # The Center for Immigration Studies is an independent research institution that examines the impact of immigration on the United States.
