I'm shocked, shocked I say! Lobbyist Alleges Cato Institute 'Mercenaries' Are Paid to Push Pro-Immigration Studies Pro-immigration research papers published by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, are not independent, but designed to meet the needs of lobbying clients, according to allegations in a Telegram message obtained by Chronicles. Aman Kapoor, president of the advocacy group Immigration Voice (IV), alleged that Cato Research fellow David Bier was paid by IV to write pro-immigration papers, and that Bier is “like mercenaries (sic), working to push the agenda of the highest bidder." But what about the science? This is not the first time the Cato Institute has been implicated in a pay-to-play scandal. In 2005, a senior scholar at Cato resigned after it came to light that he took payments from the lobbyist Jack Abramoff in exchange for writing columns favorable to his clients. I think this is useful to keep in mind when someone brings up a "CATO Study" to make some sort of open borders immigration point. The study was bought and paid for.
I'm shocked that the Cato Institute would be publishing studies and papers intentionally trying to promote immigration. That does not sound very conservative. Yes it is true that there has always been a little bit of a Libertarian bent (and a faction within the Libertarian party) that has been more against restricting the movement of people across borders, so this type of thing might not be entirely out of line ideologically with a Libertarian organization like Cato, but it is very much seems to be the opposite of the extreme conservatism that many people would have imagined the Cato Institute to be.
It's not a faction of Libertarian's that support open borders, it's all the factions of libertarianism. And Cato has always been a libertarian think tank. They've never identified as "conservative."