Phill Kline, former Kansas Attorney General and current law professor at Liberty University School of Law, said the protests unfolding nationwide against federal law enforcement carrying out immigration operations are being subsidized by American taxpayer money via nonprofit and NGO funding.
Kline highlighted the role that NGOs and nonprofit organizations play in training and financing the protests seen in recent weeks in cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York City against federal immigration enforcement operations on Wednesday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show.
“Part of the problem is NGOs and Nonprofits. Nonprofit status is really the average American taxpayer subsidizing foreign governments and billionaires, foreign and domestic, in their political activities. That’s where a lot of the training takes place. That’s where a lot of the funding flows, and we don’t need to do that,” Kline explained.
Kline further criticized the current nonprofit tax-exempt system, emphasizing how the system is being abused to fund political activism under the guise of charity, with taxpayers unknowingly subsidizing efforts that, in his view, are hostile to American interests.
“We didn’t have nonprofit tax status till 1917 and we still had charity in the United States. It’s been abused. It’s dominantly political in many ways right now. Without it, Americans can still support good causes. It just prevents the government from being engaged in defining what a charity is, and the government has abused that process,” Kline said.
“It has allowed so-called charitable actions by institutions that it favors and it presses down upon those institutions that it doesn’t favor. So yes, this is orchestrated and subsidized by the American taxpayer. Much of it through federal grants and a lot of it through nonprofit,” he added.
With regard to President Donald Trump’s decision to nationalize the California National Guard in response to this week’s riots in Los Angeles, Kline said the move is legal as the president acted under Article 10 of the U.S. Code to protect federal property and personnel, which, as he noted, has been done many times by former presidents.
“It’s important to put it in context of what is happening. President Trump has nationalized the California National Guard for a specific purpose, and that purpose and that type of action has been done before. It is well within the precedent of previous actions by presidents. Trump has said that they will be used to protect federal property and federal law enforcement. It’s been done before, it will be done again, and it’s proper to do right now,” Kline explained.
Kline criticized California Governor Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass for refusing to cooperate with federal authorities, arguing that their defiance undermines public safety and federal law enforcement.
He likens the governor and mayor’s stance to historical examples of state-level obstruction, such as Governor George Wallace’s resistance to school integration in the 1960s, warning that this lack of cooperation makes law enforcement operations more dangerous by denying them the intelligence and coordination needed for safe and effective action.
“The governor of California and the mayor of Los Angeles have encouraged non-cooperation by government officials with federal officials in enforcing federal law. That is dangerous, and is similar to Governor Wallace standing in front of a school and saying, ‘We will not have integration here’ and then President Johnson having to nationalize the National Guard and also act in a fashion to enforce federal law in Alabama,” Kline said.
“You’ve got law enforcement trying to do their job and engage in actions to detain and then possibly deport those who are in violation of U.S. law. Whenever you do that, and you have to engage in actions to detain them, raids, so to speak, you need good, sufficient intelligence. You need to understand what you’re walking into because some of those who are defiant of the law might act in a way that puts law enforcement in jeopardy, puts innocent civilians in harm’s way, and actually might cause harm to themselves if they overreact,” he added.
Tune in now to The Michael Patrick Leahy Show – your AMERICA FIRST news talk!
– Watch LIVE here on X
– Watch LIVE on Roku
– Listen on Spotify
– Listen on WENO AM760 in Nashville
– Read more at @TheTNStarhttps://t.co/TxB77awkyz— MichaelPatrick Leahy (@michaelpleahy) June 11, 2025
– – –
Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
This has to end. It’s a cancer on this country.