On the legal status of Minnesota's immigration reduction groups (and why it might matter)

A month ago, the Rochester Post Bulletin ran Anti-immigration group challenges Welcome Center's goal, an article about the Minnesota Coalition for Immigration Reduction's request to go through the books of Austin's Welcome Center. The full article is no longer on the Post Bulletin's site, but we've retrieved a copy from an immigration "reform" group's forum.

The immigration reduction group wanted to look at the Center's operations and finance:

It won't be the group's first visit to the center, according to member Dean Dykeman, who said that during the previous visit, the group asked several questions about the motives of the center.

"I'm open to everybody," said Silvestry. "We are an open book. We don't have anything to cover."

The Welcome Center, founded in 2000, provides programs and services to newcomers that promote self-sufficiency and multicultural understanding among the increasingly diverse population in the area.

According to Silvestry, about 6 percent of the Welcome Center's $256,000 annual budget comes from the city. The rest is funded mostly through grants and donations.

However, many MCFIR members said they believe the Welcome Center is a "placement agency" for illegal immigrants that is "funded by the taxpayers of Austin."

Paul Westrum, founder of MCFIR, suggested at the group's monthly meeting Tuesday that some members meet with Silvestry to discuss operations, including the center's funding formula. . . .

The inquiries were not out of order. After all, the Welcome Center is an non-profit, duly registered with the Minnesota Secretary of State and with the Charities Division of the Minnesota Attorney General's office. As a non-profit corporation and charity, the Welcome Center exchanges privacy for tax exemption and public scrutiny.

Indeed, this nonprofit status is something it shares with many of the members of AFFIRM, the broad coalition of groups seeking comprehensive immigration reform in the state. The Welcome Center, however, has a different mission than advocating policy; it serves newcomers to Austin.

The article made us wonder about the legal status of the two Minnesota-based immigration reduction (or reform) advocacy groups most often cited in the press, the Minnesota Coalition for Immigration Reduction (MCFIR) and its sub-chapter, Minnesotans Seeking Immigration Reform (MinnSIR).

Find out what our research turned up below the fold.

We started our inquiries with an online name search at the Minnesota Secretary of State's website. We didn't find anything listed for MCFIR, but MinnSIR is listed an assumed name registered on May 10, 2006. The address appears to be that of MinnSIR president Ruthie Hendrycks.

Nor is either group registered as a charity with the Minnesota Attorney General's office, so far as we could find by searching the online charity database.

A kind staffer at the Secretary of State's office directed us to the Minnesota Council for Nonprofits, where the Info Central page explaining How to  Start a Nonprofit outlined the threshold that required small association to incorporate as non-profits. Essentially, they must have possess assets under $25,000 and have no paid staff.  From what information that we've gathered, both MinnSIR and MCFIR fit the bill here.

Another question that we had concerned the issue advocacy and candidate endorsements that the groups conduct. A call to the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board revealed that so far as we could learn from looking at the groups' more political activity, both are following the rules.

A staff member for the board noted that associations must spend $50,000 or more to be required to register, while political committees must spend $100 or more for or against a candidate or ballot measure. This figure also includes a committee's total contributions. (We haven't checked out the FEC's regulations for this post). 

Thus, while neither group is particularly transparent with regard to public disclosure of its finances or membership figures, they do so because small voluntary groups are rightfully given more freedom under our state's laws. After all, there's little public interest to be pursued in requiring the local quilting club to submit to burdensome regulation if the dues its members charge themselves are nominal and their membership drawn from local people.

Given the limited size of both MCFIR and MInnSIR, we do have to wonder why the media gives the groups such a large soapbox. Paul Westrum has claimed that MCFIR have between 27and 30 chapters, but other than on the MFS page for MCFIR, we have not been able to locate any activity of any specific chapters outside of Albert Lea, Austin, Hanska (MinnSIR) and Steele County (Owatonna). Outdoor Rallies by the groups  have drawn fewer than 100 people; press accounts of meetings sponsored solely by these groups never report single-event attendance above  a hundred or so, with att most 200 individuals having come to  quarterly meetings in Steele County (it's not possible to tell from the source if that's 200 at one meeting or at all meetings combined).

So why does the legal status of immigration reduction groups--which are especially vocal about illegal or undocumented immigration--matter in the least?  It's that question of "legal" rather than structure or size that may be troublesome for the groups.

MinnSIR, which is not a nonprofit organization, sells taxable merchandise (bumper stickers and dog tags) that is subject to the Minnesota sales via its website. A call to the Minnesota Depertment of Revenue's sales tax division revealed that Hendrycks, doing business as Minnesotans Seeking Immigration Reform, should be charging sales tax on taxable merchandise. Non-profits are eligible for exemption from  paying sales tax, but not from charging it. (And yes, online merchants in Minnesota must charge these taxes; for example, this Lefse seller has its book sales covered).

Nor is this the only instance that we've found where an immigration reduction group may have failed to follow the rules in its fund raising. The screen shot at the beginning of this post documents a raffle by MCFIR to put up a billboard on I35 near Faribault using a raffle. The post notes that 1200 tickets were to be sold at $5; $6000 would have been raised had every ticket been sold. The billboard was intended to motivate motorists to call MinnSIR, which would then  urge people to go to their precinct caucuses and push  immigration issues.

We called Steve Pedersen, Licensing Supervisor for the Minnesota Gambling Control Board, to see if the raffle was on the up-and-up. Once he looked at the YouTube post and accompanying text explaining the raffle, he said that if the group had indeed used the raffle proceeds to fund the billboard, MCFIR had broken state gaming rules. No funds from raffles may be used for political purposes, including urging caucus attendance.

(We didn't run it past Pedersen, but there's another YouTube here, and the accompanying discussion suggests that most of the raffle tickets were sold).

Pedersen also suggested another possible violation of state gambling rules, although he could not state with certainty that they had indeed been broken without independently investigating MCFIR and MinnSIR's legal status.   While a search we conducted of values of  the prizes indicated that they seem to be worth less than $1500, Pedersen said only nonprofits (which neither MinnSIR  nor MCFIR is) are able to conduct such exempt, unlicensed raffles.

No license had been issued by the board for the day of the raffle (January 8, 2008) for any raffle anywhere in the state, Pedersen said. He noted that any investigation by the board of the raffle would take about a month. We noted that we were asking the questions as part of our research into the groups and didn't wish to make a formal complaint.

Why does this matter? Both MinnSIR and MCFIR are groups that stress going through proper channels and following the rules. Does their own fund raising follow the rules? Decide for yourself. Journalists might want to take a second look at these groups as well.

Comments

[Phoenix Woman]

So that's what a glass house sounds like when it shatters. Amazing.