Millions in aid from small business relief fund went to "hate groups"
Source: CBS News
At least 10 groups with a history of making anti-Black, anti-LGBTQ or anti-immigrant statements received loans from the government's small business coronavirus relief fund.
The Center for Immigration Studies, for instance, a Washington, D.C.-based organization described as a "hate group" by the Southern Poverty Law Center, got as much as $1 million from the Paycheck Protection Program, with the loan made by United Bank. The Southern Poverty Law Center in 2017 documented more than 2,000 instances in which the Center for Immigration Studies "circulated the writings of white nationalists and antisemitic writers."
The 10 policy groups received a total of as much as $10 million in assistance from the Paycheck Protection Program. Eight of those groups are identified as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The publicly subsidized funding of what are often described as hate groups underscores the criticism that the hastily enacted Paycheck Protection Program lacked safeguards to ensure an equitable distribution of funds, especially to what many people would view as traditional for-profit small businesses. Among those who struggled to gain access to PPP loans are black and Hispanic business owners, with a survey finding that only 12% of such applicants received the forgivable low-interest loans, according to a survey from racial equality groups Color of Change and UnidosUS.
Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/paycheck-protection-ppp-loans-hate-groups/
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