Boston Financier Practices Unusual Philanthropy by Posting Bail

The identity of an anonymous donor who posted over $200,000 in bail for 40 illegal immigrants who had been arrested in a federal factory raid in New Bedford, Mass., last year has been revealed, reports The Wall Street Journal.

Bob Hildreth, a Boston financier who runs International Bank Services, a small firm that buys and sells corporate debt, says he was spurred to make the donations after seeing televised images of the shackled immigrants being sent to a detention center in Texas without the necessary time or resources to post bail and avoid deportation. Mr. Hildreth, 57, called the incident “extremely un-American.”

Donations of bail money are considered risky and unusual in the philanthropic world, the newspaper notes. Mr. Hildreth has indeed been the object of scorn from some critics, including prominent New Bedford talk-radio host Ken Pittman, who said he would ask Mr. Hildreth “to show the same compassion for American workers displaced by these illegal aliens.”

Mr. Hildreth, who has previously made donations to improve education for immigrants and to pay for literacy and citizenship classes in the Boston area, posted bail for the immigrants by working through the legal-aid group Greater Boston Legal Services. When he was told that the money would be returned to him once the cases were resolved, Mr. Hildreth said he would set it aside as a bail fund for future cases.