# Center for Immigration Studies The "respectable" face of the [[Tanton Network]] — a Washington, D.C. think tank that produces research designed to make immigration restriction appear to be the conclusion of neutral policy analysis rather than the product of a network founded by a man with explicit white nationalist connections. CIS is the organization that gets cited in congressional testimony, quoted in mainstream news stories, and consulted by policymakers who would never knowingly associate with the broader Tanton ecosystem. ## Why It Matters CIS was founded in 1985 as a spinoff of [[FAIR]] — the Federation for American Immigration Reform, John Tanton's flagship organization. Where FAIR does grassroots lobbying and NumbersUSA does voter mobilization, CIS provides the research and data that the entire restrictionist movement cites to support its claims. Its reports on immigrant welfare use, employment effects, crime rates, and fiscal costs are formatted to look like neutral policy analysis and are designed to provide ammunition for restriction. The SPLC designated CIS as a hate group in 2017, citing the organization's frequent publication of white nationalist authors and its role in the Tanton Network. CIS vigorously disputes the designation and has sued the SPLC. Major media outlets have been divided on whether to continue treating CIS as a credible source — some have stopped citing it, while others continue to use its data in immigration coverage. ## The Research Strategy CIS's power lies in its research methodology — which is designed to produce predetermined conclusions: **Selective framing**: CIS studies consistently frame immigration in terms of costs rather than benefits, counting fiscal expenditures on immigrant households while minimizing or ignoring tax contributions, economic growth, and productivity gains. **Low-immigration counterfactuals**: Many CIS reports compare current immigration levels to scenarios with dramatically reduced immigration, implicitly treating high restriction as the baseline. **Crime and welfare focus**: CIS disproportionately publishes research on immigrant crime and welfare use — topics chosen to reinforce the narrative that immigration is a burden rather than a benefit, even when its own data shows immigrant crime rates below native-born rates. **Credentialed staff**: CIS employs researchers with legitimate academic credentials, producing reports with footnotes, methodology sections, and the formatting conventions of genuine policy research. This makes the output difficult for journalists and legislators to distinguish from neutral analysis without understanding the organizational context. ## The Stephen Miller Pipeline CIS's most consequential influence channel was through [[Stephen Miller]], who used CIS reports extensively in shaping the Trump administration's immigration policy. CIS data appeared in White House talking points, executive order justifications, and congressional testimony. The organization's executive director, Mark Krikorian, became a regular presence in immigration policy discussions. This represents the Tanton Network's ultimate success: research produced by an organization founded as part of an immigration restriction network created by a man with eugenics interests, cited as neutral policy analysis by the White House to justify separating families at the border. ## The Analytical Framework CIS is the **knowledge production layer** of the white nationalist-adjacent immigration restriction movement. It plays the same role for immigration that the [[Heritage Foundation]] plays for tax policy or that [[Alliance Defending Freedom]] plays for religious liberty litigation — providing the intellectual product that makes political action appear evidence-based. The key distinction is that CIS's research is designed to serve its conclusions rather than discover them. This isn't unique to CIS — many think tanks across the political spectrum produce advocacy research. But CIS's position within the Tanton Network — an infrastructure built by a man who corresponded with white nationalists about the demographic threat of non-white immigration — means that its "neutral" research serves a specifically racialized agenda, even when individual reports avoid explicit racial language. CIS demonstrates how the pipeline from white nationalism to mainstream policy works at the institutional level: Tanton's racial concerns → FAIR's organizational infrastructure → CIS's research production → congressional testimony and White House policy. Each step adds a layer of respectability that obscures the origins.