The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, a group funded by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, delivered hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants to a George Soros-backed nonprofit group that may have illegally failed to disclose its lobbying activities.
Alianza Americas, a 501(c)(3) pro-immigration nonprofit group, received $440,000 combined in 2019 and 2020 from CZI — including, in one case, money related to an issue Alianza appears to have lobbied Congress about during that same time period, according to CZI’s grant database and tax records reviewed by the Washington Examiner.
The revelation comes after the National Legal and Policy Center, a conservative watchdog group, alleged in an Oct. 26 complaint to the IRS that the agency should investigate whether Alianza violated federal law when it claimed in its 2019 and 2020 tax returns that it didn’t lobby — despite Alianza disclosing “extensive lobbying activities” in these same documents.
Alianza came into the public eye when it filed a lawsuit in September against Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis over him flying illegal immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. Between 2016 and 2020, the charity raked in about $1.4 million from Soros’s Open Society Foundations network, records show. Alianza has repeatedly called to “defund” U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
CZI is a limited liability corporation funded with 99% of Zuckerberg and Chan’s wealth from their Facebook stock shares. The LLC gives to left-leaning causes through a 501(c)(4) lobbying arm, a donor-advised fund through the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, which is a liberal charity with billions in assets, and also a 501(c)(3) charity.
Since its founding in 2015, CZI has awarded $2.9 billion in grants, according to its website. The grants to Alianza were given through the 501(c)(3) CZI Foundation.
CZI gave $400,000 to Alianza for advocacy related to Temporary Protected Status, records show. TPS is a U.S. policy that lets immigrants stay in the United States if their native country is dealing with armed conflict or other extraordinary conditions.
TPS also happens to be what Alianza disclosed on its tax returns in 2019 and 2020 that it seemingly lobbied on.
Alianza made over 200 “visits to Congress” between June 2017 and September 2019 and also held “two congressional briefings” in Washington, D.C., on TPS and other immigration-related issues, according to its tax records. Upon the Trump administration blocking TPS, Alianza “activated a nationwide community organizing strategy” and partnered with groups to “engage” holders of “temporary protected status,” tax records show.
“Zuckerberg’s combined $400,000 donation to Alianza Americas for TPS support and advocacy in 2019 and 2020 is further evidence that the group was lobbying on immigration reform and should have been reported on their IRS Form 990,” Paul Kamenar, counsel to the National Legal and Policy Center, told the Washington Examiner.
The other $40,000 that Alianza received from CZI was for “COVID-19 rapid response” in 2020, records show. It is unclear how this grant directly relates to separate grants Alianza received from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in 2021 for vaccine outreach.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention awarded Alianza a $7.5 million grant in February 2021 “to reduce the spread of COVID-19 and mitigate impacts among Latinx and Latin American immigrants.” In July 2021, the Health Resources and Services Administration awarded Alianza $1 million to “increase COVID-19 vaccine status” in certain communities.
These HHS grants were at the center of letters that Trump’s former HHS Chief of Staff Brian Harrison, as well as Reps. Chip Roy (R-TX) and Beth Van Duyne (R-TX), penned to the agency’s inspector general calling for an investigation. The lawmakers demanded the inspector general “audit” the awards to see whether any federal grant money has been used for lobbying, which would violate federal law.
“I have continued to monitor actions taken by the Department and am deeply concerned that taxpayer dollars, in the guise of federal grants from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), are being used to fund lobbying activities and contacts in the United States and foreign jurisdictions and to promote illegal immigration into the United States,” wrote Harrison in his letter, which was first obtained by the Washington Examiner.
CZI is no stranger to bankrolling left-leaning immigration groups. In January 2021, CZI announced it would send $100 million to FWD.us — a liberal pro-immigration nonprofit lobbying group that Zuckerberg co-founded.
In 2019 and 2020, CZI gave almost $3 million to groups for TPS-related advocacy, records reviewed by the Washington Examiner show.
CZI and Alianza did not respond to requests for comment.
* Article from: The Washington Examiner
