Re: Immigration Organization of the Week: NumbersUSA

NumbersUSA Staff — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 16:27:13 -0000

NumbersUSA responds.

Some inaccuracies are present this profile.

(1) "The organization solicits contributions from conservative foundations and members of thepublic ."

It's "conservation " not "conservative." Is your sentence above based on the New York Times article of 7/15/2007? That aricle says, "Mr. Beck said that in the past the group received about two-thirds of its money from foundations like the Colcom Foundation of Pittsburgh and the Weeden Foundation in New York. Many of these foundations have an interest in conservation."

(2) "NumbersUSA is affiliated with and funded by FAIR founder and notorious anti-immigration activist John Tanton, though the exact relationship is somewhat sketchy."

NumbersUSA is neither affiliated with nor funded by John Tanton. After Roy Beck started NumbersUSA with Roy Beck’s own money, John Tanton made some small contributions amounting to less than 0.3% of the total funding of the organization. The New York Times article says that, "Mr. Beck said Numbers USA had been independent of Dr. Tanton since 2002." That means NumbersUSA has not received any contributions from Tanton since 2002. Roy Beck did start NumbersUSA while he worked for John Tanton. But people often start businesses and non-profits while they are working for somebody else. After all, you need to have money coming in while you set things up. It doesn’t mean there is any affiliation.

(3) "NumbersUSA is technically non-partisan, however it usually endorses Republican candidates."

We do not endorse candidates and we are non-partisan. We give every candidate a chance to take our surveys. We post information about their position on immigration. That doesn't constitute an endorsement of the candidate. Other issues about the candidate that we don't keep track of might mean that, overall, the candidate is not worthy of your vote. As for members of congress, we give them an immigration grade based on how their immigration votes effect immigration numbers. Our lobbying team has both Democrats and Republicans on it, and we work closely with congressional members of both parties.

(4) "It also endorses "True Reform Candidates" for Congress and state offices."

We don't endorse. We are saying they have a position on the immigration issue that is largely in accord with that of NumbersUSA. Some of our members do choose how to cast their vote based solely on the immigration issue.

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Re: Immigration Organization of the Week: NumbersUSA