The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) is an American anti-immigration think tank. It favors far lower immigration numbers and produces analyses to further those views. The CIS was founded by historian Otis L. Graham alongside eugenicist and white nationalist John Tanton in 1985 as a spin-off of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). It is one of a number of anti-immigration organizations founded by Tanton, along with FAIR and NumbersUSA. CIS has been involved in the creation of Project 2025.
Reports published by CIS have been disputed by scholars on immigration, fact-checkers and news outlets, and immigration-research organizations. The organization had significant influence within the Trump administration, which cited the group's work to defend its immigration policies. The Southern Poverty Law Center designated CIS as a hate group with ties to the American nativist movement.
History and funding
The CIS was founded by Otis L. Graham and John Tanton. The organization was founded in 1985 as a spin-off from the Federation for American Immigration Reform and is one of a number of anti-immigration organizations founded by Tanton, along with FAIR and NumbersUSA. Otis L. Graham, professor emeritus of history at the University of California, Santa Barbara was the founding chairman of CIS, and later a founding board member.Staff (ndg) "Otis L. Graham Jr." Center for Immigration Studies website John Tanton, an ophthalmologist, eugenicist, and white nationalist, was instrumental in its founding.DeParle, Jason (April 17, 2011 "The Anti-Immigration Crusader" The New York TimesSherman, Amy (March 22, 2017) "Is the Center for Immigration Studies a hate group, as the Southern Poverty Law Center says?" PolitiFact The CIS began as the research arm of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), and became a separate entity in 1986. According to immigration historian Carly Goodman, Tanton created CIS as a separate entity from FAIR so that they could produce research that had a greater appearance of objectivity.
CIS does not provide information about sources of funding. The Colcom Foundation, a prominent supporter of the immigration control movement in the United States, has been identified as one of its main funders.
CIS has been described as conservative, a label rejected by the organization. After an NPR story described CIS as "decidedly right-wing", Edward Schumacher-Matos, the then ombudsman of NPR, argued that this mislabelled CIS, noting the organization's "political diversity".
Trump administration CIS influenced the Trump 2016 campaign and Trump administration's rhetoric on immigration. Trump's first national general election advertisement cited CIS.
In 2017, CIS analyst Jon Feere joined the Immigration and Customs Enforcement of the Trump administration. In his writings for CIS, Feere had claimed that giving birth on U.S. soil gives immigrants access to welfare and other social benefits, and that this gives rise to "birth tourism" (the practice of foreigners traveling to the United States to give birth to U.S. citizens). CNN wrote that "Politifact has mostly debunked those claims, concluding that US-born children do little in the long term to help their immigrant parents. Citizen children cannot sponsor their parents for citizenship until the young person turns 21 and any social benefits would be given to the child and not their undocumented parents, who do not qualify. The Pew Research Center also has found that the number of babies born to unauthorized immigrants in the United States has been declining steadily in recent years."
In September 2017, the Trump administration defended its claim that Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) "denied jobs to hundreds of thousands of Americans by allowing those same illegal aliens to take those jobs" by citing editorials written by members of the Center for Immigration Studies. However, economists consulted by PolitiFact rejected the claim, noting that the job market is not fixed or zero-sum.
In May 2018, President Trump nominated Ronald Mortensen, a CIS fellow, as Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, a top state department position overseeing refugee resettlement. Mortensen had been a vocal critic of illegal immigration.
In March 2019, CIS fellow Todd Bensman claimed that female migrants were given free elective laser eye surgery in detention centers, and that their children were given free braces. The Associated Press found the claims to be false.
Policy stances and activities
The Center for Immigration Studies supports lower levels of legal immigration and stricter enforcement measures against illegal immigration.
Support for Trump administration's family separation policy In 2018, CIS defended the Trump administration's decision to separate undocumented immigrant children from their parents. CIS argued that the policy deterred immigrant families from crossing the US border and said that the policy "actually protects foreign nationals." At a June 2018 event hosted at CIS, outgoing acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Thomas Homan, defended the policy.Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Defends Separating Families at the Border , Time, Maya Rhodan, June 5, 2018. Retrieved June 6, 2018.
Opposition to sanctuary cities CIS opposes sanctuary cities, which are jurisdictions which limit cooperation with federal immigrant enforcement agencies or prioritize law enforcement resources for other things than immigration enforcement.
Opposition to work permits for foreign university students CIS seeks an end to "Optional Practical Training" work permits, which foreign students who attend American universities can use to obtain internships.
Publications CIS publishes research and analysis of immigration data. The organization's publications address topics relating to both illegal and legal immigration.
Project 2025 CIS is a member of the advisory board of Project 2025, a collection of conservative and right-wing policy proposals from the Heritage Foundation to reshape the United States federal government and consolidate executive power should the Republican nominee win the 2024 presidential election.
Criticism The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) published reports in 2002 and 2009Beirich, Heidi. The Nativist Lobby . Southern Poverty Law Center. on John Tanton, who founded CIS. Tanton is a retired Michigan ophthalmologist who opposed immigration on racial grounds, desired a white ethnic majority in the United States and advocated for eugenics. The SPLC's 2009 report charged that "FAIR, CIS and NumbersUSA are all part of a network of restrictionist organizations conceived and created by John Tanton" who they said had "deeply racist" views, and said that the group had "frequently manipulated data" in order to promote anti-immigration goals.
In a response in the National Review, Krikorian called the SPLC's report "hackwork", and pointed to members of the CIS board who were involved with civil rights organizations as evidence that the group was not a hate group. Tanton also denied the SPLC's accusations. As to his alleged influence at CIS, he wrote, "I also helped raise a grant in 1985 for the Center for Immigration Studies, but I have played no role in the Center's growth or development."Tanton, John. "SPLC's MO: Audacter calumniare semper aliquid haeret (slander boldly, something always sticks)". The Social Contract. Spring 2010. According to CNN, Tanton openly embraced eugenics. The New York Times noted that Tanton made his case against immigration in racial terms. CIS has consequently been criticized for its reluctance to criticize Tanton and his views.
In 2004, a Wall Street Journal editorial repeated the SPLC's allegation that CIS is part of a network of organizations founded by Tanton and also charged that these organizations are "trying to stop immigration to the U.S." It quoted Chris Cannon, at the time a Republican U.S. representative from Utah, as saying, "Tanton set up groups like CIS and FAIR to take an analytical approach to immigration from a Republican point of view so that they can give cover to Republicans who oppose immigration for other reasons."
Several months earlier, Krikorian denied allegations made in a similarly critical The Wall Street Journal editorial and by Representative Cannon, writing "This kind of venomous lying and guilt by association are par for the course in the fever swamps of the web, but are startling in the halls of the U.S. Congress and the pages of the nation's largest-circulation newspaper."Krikorian, Mark. "Strange Bedfellows". National Review Online. March 31, 2004. Although former Representative Cannon expressed a negative view of CIS, the CIS website quotes other elected officials, including U.S. Representative Lamar S. Smith (R-TX), former Governor Richard D. Lamm (D-CO), U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL), and former U.S. Senator Alan Simpson (R-WY), in support of the organization.
In 2016, the SPLC began describing CIS as an anti-immigrant hate group. It cited CIS's repeated publication of white nationalist and anti-Semitic writers, its employment of an analyst known to promote racist pseudoscience, its association with John Tanton, and its record of publishing reports that it said hyped the criminality of immigrants. In 2019, CIS sued the SPLC over the hate group designation in a RICO lawsuit, alleging that the designation was false and part of a "smear campaign". Notre Dame Law School professor G. Robert Blakey, the author of the 1970 RICO statute, described CIS's filing as "not too thoughtful" and said its legal claims lacked merit. The SPLC described the suit as an attempt to suppress their right to free speech. The lawsuit was dismissed in September 2019 by Judge Amy Berman Jackson for failure to state a claim.U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (September 13, 2019) "Memorandum & Opinion"
Disputed reports The Center for Immigration Studies has been criticized for publishing a number of reports deemed to be false or misleading and using poor methodology by scholars on immigration, such as the authors of the National Academies of Sciences 2016 report on immigration; by think tanks such as the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the Cato Institute, Urban Institute and Center for American Progress; fact-checkers such as FactCheck.Org, PolitiFact, Washington Post, Snopes and NBC News; and by other immigration-research organizations (such as Migration Policy Institute and the Immigration Policy Center).
Back Where We Started: An Examination of Trends in Immigrant Welfare Use Since Welfare Reform (2003) A March 2003 CIS report said that between 1996 and 2001 welfare use by immigrant-headed households had increased and that "welfare use rates for immigrants and natives are essentially back to where they were in 1996 when welfare reform was passed." The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said this was misleading because the U.S. children of noncitizens "account[ed] for all of the increase in Medicaid or SCHIP participation among U.S. citizens living in low-income households headed by noncitizens."
Immigrants in the United States, 2007