Alliance of White Anti-Racists Everywhere – Los Angeles
NumbersUSA Education & Research Foundation
The Implied Bigotry of NumbersUSA
01 year ago
by Jill Garvey
in Americans For Better Immigration, Californians For Population Stabilization, Council for Conservative Citizens, David Duke, Grassroots Organization, Immigration, Immigration Reform, John Tanton, Numbersusa Action, NumbersUSA Education & Research Foundation, Politics, Population Control, Roy Beck, White Nationalism
Beck at a CofCC event
NumbersUSA operates at the nerve center of the most influential anti-immigrant network in the country.
This network, created by John Tanton, consists of over two dozen lobby, legal, legislative, and environmental groups that have penetrated mainstream social and political discourse. Of late, no group has been more successful than NumbersUSA, which is leading a vicious campaign against immigration reform advocates. NumbersUSA was founded in 1997 under the financial umbrella of Tanton’s U.S., Inc.
Unlike Tanton’s other groups, NumbersUSA strategically avoids overt white nationalist rhetoric in favor of emphasizing the alleged negative economic and environmental impacts of immigrants. Based in Arlington, VA, NumbersUSA presently consists of three legally distinct but financially intertwined organizations: NumbersUSA Education & Research Foundation, NumbersUSA Action, Inc., and Americans for Better Immigration.
Roy Beck is the executive director of NumbersUSA Education & Research Foundation, NumbersUSA Action, Inc., and chairman of Americans for Better Immigration. Looking at Form 990s from each group, Beck is listed as a paid employee at all three. Compensated a whopping $274,500 in 2007 alone, Beck’s paycheck is more than five times the net income of an average American. Not bad for a gig at a “grassroots” organization.
Last week Beck laid bare his plot, called “S.T.O.P. Amnesty” to defeat a powerful march for immigration reform. NumbersUSA’s troops of choice are tea partiers and hard-core anti-immigrant activists. Beck all but ordered fractured tea partiers to fall in line behind his anti-immigrant agenda on a conference call last week. As evidenced at the national tea party convention, beating up on immigrants appeals to many tea party members; however, one has to wonder if they would be so enthusiastic were they to know about Beck’s views on population control.
Just in case the tea partiers don’t stick to the anti-immigrant talking points, Roy Beck is using his environmental background and population growth “expertise” to push anti-immigrant sentiment among the conservation crowd.
Under a coalition called America’s Leadership Team for Long Range Population Immigration-Resource Planning, NumbersUSA is partnering with the American Immigration Control Foundation (AICF). AICF president John Vinson regularly writes for the white supremacist organization Council of Conservative Citizens. Vinson is also a founding member of the racist League of the South.
This year NumbersUSA released a report with Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS). Rick Oltman, the media director of CAPS, was listed as a member by the Council of Conservative Citizens. Oltman also lost a Republican Party post in California after he supported physical attacks on undocumented immigrants.
While population growth is certainly a legitimate issue to address, just based on its ties to white nationalism as outlined above, NumbersUSA should be excluded from the discussion.
NumbersUSA supporters argue that the organization is merely a grassroots operation trying to protect American workers, but they conveniently ignore its ties to organized bigotry and murky financial structure. At the beginning of the week NumbersUSA’s campaign was heartily promoted by white nationalist David Duke. Nothing conveys “tolerance” quite like a pat on the back from a former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.
And what should be made of yesterday’s alert on NumbersUSA’s website that stated, “Organizers for the Amnesty March are providing transportation for marchers and have a website dedicated to helping marchers organize before Sunday. Immigration Equality is also providing transportation for the LGBT community, encouraging them to take part in the Amnesty March.”
It sounds as if NumbersUSA is pushing the buttons of some of its say, more extreme supporters, who may be into both gay and immigrant bashing.
Whether it’s in far-right conservative, working-class, or environmental communities, NumbersUSA, along with a host of related anti-immigrant groups, is trying to stir up trouble, not find solutions.
The answers to immigration issues will not be found through NumbersUSA’s brand of political extremism, but rather a vision that includes immigrants and native-born U.S. citizens working together to achieve a better life for all Americans.
NumbersUSA’s Excuses are a Dime a Dozen
01 year ago
The controversial anti-immigrant group NumbersUSA is still having a difficult time being completely above board with the American public. Over the last year the organization has been busy spinning its connections with white nationalists and its organizational stance on reproductive rights. This week it appears that NumbersUSA is adding fundraising to the list.
Last week Imagine2050 blogger Stephen Piggott wrote about a NumbersUSA Action email solicitation that asked individuals to donate money. NumbersUSA Action is one of the three interlocking organizations under the umbrella of NumbersUSA.
In the email NumbersUSA Action suggests to its donors that, unlike its opponents, it receives no monies from government or foundation sources. The email does not inform supporters that its research and education arm has no problem taking millions of dollars from the right-wing Sarah Scaife Foundation and the population control oriented Colcom foundation.
Last week NumbersUSA Executive Director Roy Beck wrote to Imagine2050 saying “Our grassroots lobbying organization relies 100% on the small donations of concerned Americans.” According to its 990s (government tax records) that’s not exactly true either. In 2006 and 2007 alone NumbersUSA transferred nearly a million dollars from its research and education arm to NumbersUSA Action.
While it is perfectly legal for the organization to transfer these funds, to turn around and say that it “relies 100% on the small donations of concerned Americans” comes across as misleading. Something that NumbersUSA appears to be growing extremely comfortable with of late.
Last year, in response to concerns about its relationship to hate groups, Beck wrote that “NumbersUSA has never had connections with white supremacists — not in the past, not in the present, not in the future.” Once a picture surfaced of Beck speaking at a 1997 white supremacist event he simply explained “I have never denied having spoken to the Council of Conservative Citizens on my book tour in 1997.
Having, at least in his own mind, explained why he spoke to an organization that was formed by those who defended racial segregation, Beck chooses to ignore why he and his organization continue to find themselves in similar predicaments seventeen years later. Until 2005 Beck continued to regularly publish in the The Social Contract Press. The journal is edited by Wayne Lutton a longtime leader in the white nationalist movement and a board member of the anti-Semitic Charles Martel Society.
But it is not just the past. This year NumbersUSA joined in a project with two notorious anti-immigrant organizations, Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS) and U.S. Inc.
CAPS is headed up by Rick Oltman a purported member of the Council of Conservative Citizens who was removed from a Republican Party post in 1996 for supporting physical attacks on undocumented immigrants. The other organization, U.S. Inc., is run by white nationalist John Tanton who wrote that hate crime laws in Europe were pushed by “Jewish interests” and revealed to the American public that immigration was simply “a skirmish in a wider war.”
Instead of accepting responsibility for its actions, NumbersUSA seeks to satisfy its critics with excuses, omissions, and political spin. Recently, while giving a workshop at a national Tea Party gathering Roy Beck was confronted about NumbersUSA’s alleged support of abortion and population control. Beck responded by telling the tea party activists that these were not NumbersUSA issues.
Again Roy Beck wasn’t being quite as truthful as he could have been. I guess he somehow forgot to mention that he and Leon Kolankiewicz released a history of the U.S. Population Stabilization (1970-1998) in 2000 available on its website. Abortion and contraceptive are key components of population stabilization the essay argues.
I’m sure that NumbersUSA will shortly deliver up to twenty more excuses to explain its inability to be transparent with the American public. If excuses truly come a dime a dozen, NumbersUSA won’t ever have to worry about fundraising again.
NumbersUSA’s Three Branches of Financial Shadiness
01 year ago
NumbersUSA, the grassroots mobilizing arm of the John Tanton Network, has had a long history of lies and deceit. Executive director Roy Beck has long denied his connections to white nationalists. Beck spoke at the 1997 Council of Conservative Citizens National Conference, a fact he denied on numerous occasions until recently. At a recent event in Glenarden, Maryland, Beck told the crowd that he hadn’t been invited back since, in reference to the 1997 Conference.
NumbersUSA’s financial information is as murky and misleading as its leader. The group itself is split into three arms: NumbersUSA Education & Research Foundation, NumbersUSA Action, Inc., and Americans for Better Immigration. According to financial documents, all three share offices and personnel with one other. NumbersUSA Education & Research Foundation is a 501(c)(3) organization which means its lobby for legislation powers are limited. NumbersUSA Action, Inc. and Americans for Better Immigration are 501(c)(4) organizations meaning they have unlimited lobbying ability.
First let’s compare the income of NumbersUSA Education & Research Foundation and NumbersUSA Action, Inc. According to its 2008 financial documents, NumbersUSA Action, Inc. received over $1.5 million in direct public support, NumbersUSA Education & Research Foundation received over 8 million.
According to Open Secrets, NumbersUSA.com spent a whopping $630,000 on lobbying in 2008. NumbersUSA.com is the website listed on both NumbersUSA Education & Research Foundation and NumbersUSA Action, Inc.’s 2008 financial documents.
Recently, Roy Beck wrote to NumbersUSA supporters asking them to donate money to help them pay the $90,000 a month they spend on “faxing, internet activism and grassroots mobilization programs.” Beck went on to say that NumbersUSA “doesn’t get a penny from any foundation or the government.”
This is yet another example of Beck possibly stretching the truth. According to its 2008 financial documents, the Sarah Scaife Foundation paid NumbersUSA Research and Education $50,000, but because it shares office space, personnel and a website with NumbersUSA Action, Beck’s statements are suspicious.
According to the Colcom Foundation’s 2007 financial documents, they gave NumbersUSA Education & Research Foundation over $2 million. According to its 2008 financial documents, the Weeden Foundation gave NumbersUSA $25,000.
Roy Beck and NumbersUSA have a history of distorting the facts. There is a clear lack of transparency in this organization.
Though NumbersUSA’s financial information is very murky, its connections to the John Tanton Network are as clear as day.