WASHINGTON — In a rebuke to anti-immigrant actions taken by the outgoing Congress, billionaire Wall Street financier and intellectual George Soros this week pledged $50 million to help legal immigrants in the United States.
Soros is the Hungarian-born Jewish philanthropist who previously focused on helping to build democratic, open institutions in Eastern Europe, South Africa, Haiti and other formerly closed societies. But he said that this year’s congressional restriction or elimination of welfare support for categories of immigrants constitutes “a clear-cut case of injustice” and is “contrary to this country’s proud tradition of welcoming immigrants.”
“There are real people out there who are being hurt, and that is what I am responding to,” he said.
Soros is naming his new $50 million fund in honor of Emma Lazarus. Citing the Jewish poet’s words — inscribed on the Statue of Liberty — about immigrants “yearning to breathe free,” Soros said that he would work to assist legal immigrants to participate fully in American society.
“What is at stake here is justice: equal treatment and the rule of law, regardless of immigration status. I hope that the Emma Lazarus Fund will make a significant impact on the lives of thousands of immigrants, helping them as they search for the American dream and allowing them to participate fully in American political life.
“If the gesture I am making today can do that, I will consider it one of the best investments I have made,” he said.
One step Soros is taking will be to assist many legal immigrants to pay the $95 fee currently required by the Immigration and Naturalization Service for naturalization.
He also said that he will seek to help immigrants obtain English language instruction and civics education, both subjects required of those seeking to become citizens, and will establish a mechanism for grants to be obtained from nonprofit organizations working on behalf of immigrants.
He added that “money will be available right away” because “this is a black-and-white case.” He noted that thousands of people are being barred from government assistance, even though immigrants contribute greatly to society. “This is clearly a case in which legal immigrants are being hurt,” he claimed.
“I hope that by making such a large commitment I will attract attention to this issue,” Soros said in Washington on Monday, as he announced establishment of the Emma Lazarus Fund.
Soros also attacked anti-immigrant moves by Congress which, he charged, “go against the spirit and probably also the letter of the Constitution.”
Moreover, Soros observed that President Clinton himself had publicly stated his opposition to some of the anti-immigrant aspects of the welfare reforms he nevertheless signed into law over the summer.
With Soros at the announcement in Washington this week was Aryeh Neier, president of the Open Society Institute and a long-time international human rights advocate. Neier, who was active on behalf of Jewish cultural rights in the former Soviet Union, served as executive director of Human Rights Watch for 12 years and was for eight years national director of the American Civil Liberties Union.
Also present was Professor Arthur C. Helton of the New York University School of Law and a specialist in immigration and refugee law. Helton heads the Forced Migration Projects for the Open Society Institute.
Helton said Jewish organizations, along with others, should recognize that persons who are desirous of entering our society are facing the devastation of the “safety net” now. He added that the Emma Lazarus Fund “is calculated to repair that [safety net] and facilitate assimilation into American life, promoting full participation in the political process.”
The Emma Lazarus Fund will work to assist immigrants without building a new infrastructure, said Soros, whose goal is for as much of the money as possible to go directly to the immigrants themselves.
“I hope that people will share my feelings and…that would mean they would probably rebuke the people who have acted in such a mean-spirited way,” he said. He was looking to mobilize Americans on this issue.
Soros, who was born in Budapest in 1930 and graduated from the London School of Economics, came to the United States in 1956. A naturalized U.S. citizen, he accumulated a large fortune through an international investment fund he founded and managed.
As a student in London, he had been inspired by the philosopher Karl Popper.