If one issue unites the Left more than any other, it is immigration. The prospect of unlimited entry and residence from abroad, especially the Third World, excites their utopian impulses. The Open Society Foundations, funded by multibillionaire George Soros, drives this advocacy. National Legal and Policy Center described last May the extent of OSF financial support for a huge nonprofit network dedicated to promoting unauthorized mass migration. Less known is the immigration activism of Soros’ late brother, Paul. The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans, a program for young foreign-born graduate students, is slowly redefining higher education, and more broadly, politics. Yet its impact pales in comparison to another immigration-related higher education aid entity outside the George Soros orbit, TheDream.US.
Founded in 1997, the New York City-based Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americanseach year awards 30 fellowships to immigrants or adult children younger than age 31 for up to two years of graduate or professional study at a degree-granting institution. For each year, the program provides a participant with up to $20,000 for tuition and $25,000 for a living stipend. In other words, a fellowship can be worth as much as $90,000. The program is open-ended; participants may apply their assistance to any area of study at any eligible institution. Most enroll at prestige private universities such as Harvard, Yale, Stanford, MIT and Columbia. Awardees are encouraged to attend annual fall conferences in New York where they can exchange stories.
Examining its graduate roster of hundreds of lawyers, musicians, physicians, entrepreneurs, economists and other achievers, this philanthropy appears motivated by the prospect of an America fully defined by a progressive, multicultural elite. Prominent alumni include Vivek Murthy, the Obama-era surgeon general; Julissa Reynoso Pantaleon, a lawyer and an official with the Obama and Biden administrations; Eric Feigl-Ding, epidemiologist and advocate of strict COVID-19 immunity protocol; Tali Farhadian Weinstein, legal counsel to top Obama officials; and Andrei Cherny, co-founder of eco-friendly financial firm Aspiration, Inc. and top-level Democratic Party policy wonk.
The Soros fellowship doesn’t simply reward academic promise. More to the point, it rewards potential to advance egalitarian liberalism. Awardees tend to be bright, accomplished young adults who lean leftward but not too far leftward. On rare occasions, a recipient may wind up straying from the script, a prime example being Vivek Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur-billionaire and prominent Trump donor in 2024 (he’d received a fellowship in 2011 to attend Yale Law School). But such persons are outliers. This is a Soros organization. The goal is remaking America as a global leader in social equality, racial diversity, ecological consciousness and corporate social responsibility.
Paul Soros (1926-2013) might have seemed less ambitious than his brother, but he believed in Geroge’s “transformative” idealism. It’s no mystery they carry similar backstories. Narrowly escaping the German SS roundups of Hungarian Jews, Paul Soros later would be arrested by Soviet agents who believed, mistakenly, that he was a wanted SS officer. He managed to escape their clutches, too, hiding inside an abandoned farmhouse. Eventually, he made his way to the U.S. a few years after the war, earning a master’s degree in engineering from New York University and starting up Soros Associates, a designer of bulk handlers and port facilities. Under his leadership, the firm expanded operations to dozens of countries. Paul Soros’ net worth at the time of his death was estimated at several million dollars. Though nowhere near the billions accumulated by brother George, it was enough to seed his own philanthropy.
The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans is very much a family affair. Daisy Soros, now 96, also Hungarian Jewish, chairs the organization. She also holds top positions in other New York-based nonprofits including Weill Cornell Medical College, the New York Metropolitan Opera, the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, and the Foreign Policy Association. If nothing else, her social calendar is busy. The family’s two adult children (two others died in childhood), Peter and Jeffrey, sit on fellowship’s board of directors; Jeffrey also serves as president.
The Soros fellowship program rests on a conviction that immigrants, the more the better, are crucial to America’s future. Its website reads: “For centuries, the contributions of immigrants have made our nation stronger. We believe that empowering New Americans with resources to further their education is a benefit for them, and equally a benefit for our nation and society.” As of 2025, the fellowship program had aided a cumulative 835 fellows from 103 countries. It does not openly promote illegal immigration, something spelled out in its immigration status criteria. If an applicant is born abroad to non-American parents, he or she must be one of the following: a naturalized citizen; an adoptee of American parents; a holder of a green card; a person granted legal refugee or asylum status; or an immigrant graduate of an American high school and undergraduate college.
But there is another category of eligibility that by law enables illegal immigrants, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). This refers to an executive order issued by President Barack Obama on June 15, 2012, without congressional approval, that grants temporary legal status to persons who entered this country as an accompanied minor at least five years earlier. At the time of its issuance, DACA provided a renewable two-year period of deferred action to about 800,000 illegal migrants, many of whom already had become adults. These people, though not here legally, are protected from deportation. The order amounts to amnesty by executive fiat. President Trump sensibly terminated DACA in 2017, but the Supreme Court in June 2020, by a 5-4 margin, blocked the action, arguing that the manner of the cancellation violated the Administrative Procedure Act. The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans has exploited this loophole for over a dozen years.
That leads us to The Dream.US, a more heavily endowed philanthropy that gives scholarships to immigrant undergraduate and graduate students on the premise that nonenforcement of immigration laws is good for America. Launched in February 2014 with the help of over $25 million in donations from some of the richest people in the country, this Washington, D.C.-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit is far more aggressive than the Paul Soros organization (no mean feat!) in advocating for “undocumented” residents. “TheDream.US is the nation’s largest college and career success program for undocumented immigrant youth, having provided more than 10,000 college scholarships to Dreamers [Note: It’s now over 11,000] attending close to 80 partner colleges in 20+ states and Washington, D.C.,” reads its website. “We believe everyone, regardless of where they were born, should have equitable access to a college education, a meaningful career, and opportunities to contribute to the communities they call home.” In its view, immigrants, regardless of legal status or origin, have a right to remain in the U.S., receive a college education, and receive financial aid if they can’t afford the expenses.
Two types of scholarships are available: National and Opportunity. The National Scholarship, by far the most commonly used, offsets an undocumented student’s in-state tuition if that student has “a significant, unmet financial need.” Awards are as much as $16,500 for an associate’s degree, $33,000 for a bachelor’s degree, and $6,000 for a stipend. The Opportunity Scholarship, by contrast, covers students who live in states that don’t allow in-state tuition for illegals. In these instances, recipients must move out of state to enroll in one of five partner colleges located in Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Tennessee and Washington, D.C. in order to receive a full-ride scholarship worth up to $100,000 in tuition, fees and living expenses in the pursuit of a bachelor’s degree. All recipients must have a cumulative high school grade point average of at least 2.5.
Most students belong to one of two classifications of immigrants who, though not here legally, are protected from deportation: 1) the 530,000 migrants (down from the original 800,000) currently covered by DACA; and 2) the 80,000 residents with Temporary Protected Status (TPS) that functions as a work permit. TheDream.US sees these pools of aspiring young adults as a plus for both education and business. The group explains: “Immigrants have the qualities we seek in employees – they are entrepreneurial, resilient, and determined to succeed…Their [DACA and TPS immigrants] are as diverse as their backgrounds, they bring vital cultural perspectives and are often bilingual.” The average recipient arrived in this country at age 4 and attended college in his or her mid-20s. About 85 percent came from Latin America, and about 70 percent are female.
TheDream.US assures employers that hiring DACA and TPS graduates is a sound investment – and a safe one. An employer doesn’t have to worry about breaking the law because people with either status have a renewable work authorization and a legitimate Social Security number. Nor does the employer have to sponsor such employees, as it would under the H-1B visa. The employer, moreover, is not required to ask job applicants about their legal status. TheDream.US, in effect, creates an ideal source of inexpensive labor. So who running the show?
The governing board of TheDream.US consists of three successful businessmen-turned-multicultural altruists. There is Donald Graham, who was publisher and then chairman of the Washington Post for nearly 35 years until 2013, when his holding company (Graham Holdings Co.) sold the paper to Amazon’s Jeff Bezos; Havana-born Carlos Gutierrez, former chairman and CEO of Kellogg Co., and secretary of commerce in the second George W. Bush administration; and Henry R. Munoz, architectural design entrepreneur, Hispanic activist and finance chair emeritus of the Democratic National Committee. In a recent impact report, the trio justified their mission this way: “When we launched this initiative, we believed – then as now – that investing in Dreamers is not just good for them, but for our nation as a whole. Dreamers are integral to America’s future, yet they still face a country that has not fully embraced them. These young people have proven themselves; many have earned the trust of the U.S. government through their hard work, while others simply want the chance to do so.”
The executive team also wants a full embrace. President and CEO Maria Gabriela “Gaby” Pacheco, a Miami, Fla. native, is a longtime Hispanic activist who knows the value of publicity. In 2010, she and three “undocumented” students walked together for four months from Miami to Washington, D.C. to dramatize the ostensible plight of immigrants who lack legal status. This “Trail of Dreams,” as it was called, received extensive press coverage and helped persuade President Obama two years later to issue his Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals directive. The Ecuador-born Pacheco, who in 2023 became a naturalized U.S. citizen and president of TheDream.US, considers illegal immigrants “undocumented Americans,” and indeed said as much during testimony before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in 2013.
Other executives likewise equate immigrant and citizen status. Hyein Lee, chief operating officer, as the TheDream.US website describes, “is driven by the power of research and evaluation to build evidence-based narratives for immigrant and higher education equity.” Cynthia Wong, chief development officer, “has focused on increasing support and advancing equity for marginalized and underserved communities, both globally and within the United States.” Nicole Mejia, communications and operations manager, “is determined to make education more accessible and equitable for diverse students because she sees it as an important tool for upward mobility.” That’s a large DEI word salad.
The foundation’s board of advisors, an amalgam of corporate executives, philanthropy executives and ethnic identity politicians, are the essence of “transformative” utopianism. Lupe De La Cruz III, PepsiCo senior director of government affairs, for instance, coordinates company product marketing with policymakers and Hispanic community leaders. Patricia Stonesifer is a well-traveled leader in the world of nonprofit governance, having chaired and served as president of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Smithsonian Institution Board of Regents. Jill Nishi, CEO of Philanthropy Northwest, “is energized by bringing people, resources and great ideas together to build great racial and economic equity.” And Jose Antonio Vargas, journalist and author of the bestselling book, Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen, is “passionate about promoting equity in education for all students.” He is best-known for his appearance on the front cover of the June 25, 2012, issue of Timemagazine, featuring an asterisk-saturated headline, “We Are Americans, Just Not Legally.”
Finally, there are top donors, a blend of philanthropy and business elites: the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (now known as the Gates Foundation); the Bob & Renee Parsons Foundation; the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative; Donald Graham; Graham Holdings Company; Jeff Bezos; MacKenzie Scott; the Omidyar Donor Advised Fund; the Pershing Square Foundation; the Pew Charitable Trust; the Pritzker Traubert Foundation; and Sheryl Sandberg. Amplifying this confluence of billionaires are the philanthropy’s “college success partners” and “business & advocacy partners.” The first group, with 17 listed members, includes Equal Chance for Education, National Student Clearinghouse, and Immigrants Rising: Transforming Lives Through Education. The second group, with 13 listed members, includes the American Business Immigration Coalition, Teach for America, and United We Dream.
These organizations are headed by people committed to making colleges and universities into havens for mass immigration. Microsoft co-founder and ex-chairman Bill Gates, for example, justified the importance of making paid tuition available for all immigrants at the official TheDream.US launch in 2014. “Education would be the top issue since it is key to individual opportunity and to the country as a whole, and we are not doing as well as other countries,” he said. “After that I would say immigration, since the injustice of the current system is incredible.” Multibillionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, co-founder of the Pershing Square Foundation, which provided a three-year, $10 million grant to TheDream.US back in 2015, is also a believer. “Working with Latino and other immigrant groups around the country opened my eyes to the plight of these young people,” he remarked at the time.
Currently, about a half-million illegal immigrants in this country are enrolled in public and private institutions of higher learning. Aside from lax border and interior enforcement by the Obama and Biden administrations, much of the problem can be attributed to the growing number of states that allow and often encourage unauthorized aliens to enroll in public colleges and universities. This principle is encoded in “tuition equity” laws. According to the Higher Ed Immigration Portal, a project of the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration (see color coded map), 19 states (including the District of Columbia) authorize illegal immigrants to have “comprehensive access” to in-state tuition and financial aid; four states are “accessible”; eight are “restrictive”; three are “limited”; five are limited to DACA recipients; and nine have no official policy. Only three states – Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina – bar unauthorized immigrants outright from attending a public college or university.
State officials often rationalize the presence of illegal immigrants on university campuses by reminding everyone that these people pay taxes. “Undocumented immigrants are taxpaying residents,” stated Governor Gavin Newsom in defense of the California Dream Act, which allows illegal immigrant students, and students from mixed-legal status families, access to public funds for higher education. This fallback cliche, however, ignores the fact that illegal immigrants as a whole consume far more in taxes than they contribute.
A national study by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) released in March 2023 found that “undocumented” immigrants at the start of the year paid less than $32 billion in federal, state and local income taxes, but cost taxpayers around $182 billion. This represented a net cost of $150.7 billion, or around $35 billion higher than the 2017 figure. Taking into account the explosion in illegal immigration during the remaining Biden years, that figure likely is much higher today. The second Trump administration effectively is forced to do damage control.
Though the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans and TheDream.US are taking advantage of government-created incentives, that shouldn’t absolve them. Though different in size and scope, these nonprofits are engaged in a common purpose: the transformation of America into a nation in which newcomers with “dreams” are immune from deportation. By contrast, they view citizens with roots in this country going back generations as virtually irrelevant. America for them is a utopia in progress, a place where everyone, having been inoculated against “hate,” puts aside group conflicts and lives in harmony.
This magical thinking, attractive in the abstract, undermines higher education and national interest. By normalizing illegal immigration and escalating all immigration, America is creating an identity crisis as well as an economic one. If we are to become a global nation, shorn of historical particularism, why bother calling ourselves a nation? A nation by definition represents a particular identity.
One hesitates to condemn the students receiving aid from these two foundations. Something has been offered to them, and the students have accepted the offer. Many Americans no doubt would jump at similar offers. But the politicians, corporate executives, philanthropists and higher education officials who did their part to establish these incentives should not get a free pass. Underneath their “compassion” is contempt for American history.
The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship’s describes its fellows as “New Americans.” Viewed from their frame of reference, the term is accurate in a figurative as well as a literal sense. The beneficiaries, whether or not U.S. citizens, are new Americans in that they are future leaders of an America retrofitted to the vision of George Soros.
Carl F. Horowitz is an NLPC senior fellow.
