$50-Million Gift Will Aid Immigrants

When George Soros broke his leg while working the Christmas shift as a porter on an English train, he was a 17-year-old Hungarian immigrant with no money. Socialized medicine fixed the leg.

He could not then have foreseen his lucrative future. But on Monday, remembering his humble past, the New York financier and philanthropist donated $50 million to help legal immigrants hard hit by the nation’s newly enacted welfare reform law.

“I have a strong personal feeling about it, being a legal immigrant myself,” Soros said. “I took this particular aspect of the welfare bill rather personally.”

Immigrant-rights activists called the gift unprecedented in its size and priceless for the signal that it will send to the nation’s immigrant population. It is estimated that at least 1 million legal immigrants stand to lose federal benefits once the welfare legislation, signed into law by President Clinton in late July, is fully implemented; 40% of them reside in California.

“Instead of pulling up the ladder, he has extended the ladder. . . . It is a tremendous symbol of hope to the immigrant community when they feel most beleaguered,” said Frank Sharry, executive director of the National Immigration Forum in Washington. “In the immigration field, if you added up all the [private] money given to foundations in the last 10 years, I’m not sure it would exceed $50 million.”

Soros, in a statement, conceded that the $50 million is woefully inadequate to plug the gap of nearly $4 billion a year in revoked benefits.

He said he would use the $50 million to establish an Emma Lazarus Fund, named for the poet who wrote the welcoming words etched on the Statue of Liberty, to help immigrants become citizens--and eligible once more for the government benefits that the new law revokes.

The money will be disbursed to community groups that could use it, for example, to pay an immigrant’s $95 citizenship application fee or to provide English-language instruction and other services necessary to qualify for naturalization.

Details of the disbursement are far from settled. Soros admitted that he was more interested in taking up the fight than in worrying about the fine points of grant-making. But officials said that his gift could enormously benefit California, where the nation’s largest concentration of legal immigrants resides.

“Clearly, this dollar amount, if used properly, could make a big impact,” said Rosalind Gold, director of policy research at the National Assn. of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, a nonprofit group that facilitates naturalization. “We have learned that often the barrier to becoming a U.S. citizen is not a lack of desire but the fact that the process is very bureaucratic and needs to be demystified.”

The gift is the latest altruistic deed by the 66-year-old financier, who has been a U.S. citizen since the 1960s. Since 1985, he has poured more than $350 million into Eastern and Central Europe. In 1993 alone, he said, he pumped more money into the countries of the former Soviet Union than did many Western governments. His Open Society Institute is parent to a network of foundations that operates in 24 countries, including Haiti and South Africa, to promote free societies.

But his philanthropy in his adopted United States, where he made his riches as a speculator in financial markets, had been modest until the welfare bill eliminated supplemental social security income, food stamps and most other federal benefits for legal immigrants who are not citizens.

“This is a clear-cut case of injustice and is contrary to this country’s proud tradition of welcoming immigrants,” Soros said in written remarks, noting that legal immigrants serve in the military and pay taxes. “I believe this proud tradition needs to be preserved in order for the United States to survive as a great nation and an open society.”

Once characterized by an investment periodical as the “World’s Greatest Investor,” Soros was born in Hungary to Jewish parents. He survived the Nazi occupation by using false papers and hiding from authorities. After the war, he studied at the London School of Economics, where he learned the theory of open societies espoused by Sir Karl Popper.

Embracing the philosophy as his own, Soros’ first humanitarian act was a gift of $1 million worth of Xerox machines sent to Hungary to help fight the Communists. He said he consistently devotes half of his income to his foundations, which help shape social and political thought.

Soros’ wealth and philanthropy have made him a controversial and powerful world figure. He has been criticized for maintaining close ties with the governments of Macedonia and Ukraine. Four years ago, he exchanged $10 billion in British pounds for other currency in the expectation that the pound would lose value. He made a killing when it did. The British government spent more than $6 billion trying to shore up its currency.

Asked if his $50-million gift, coming just five weeks before the presidential election, was politically calculated, Soros replied with one word: “Yes.”

Some immigrants-rights activists said that the gesture may resonate long after the $50 million is spent, most likely in the form of newly naturalized citizens who will take their anger to the polls.

“This may be a fulcrum that allows groups to get stronger, communities to have a louder voice, more people to become citizens and become less vulnerable,” Sharry said. “This signals the political community that this fight has just begun.”