The United States is witnessing staggering levels of racist hate, as 2007 saw a spike in the number of hate groups nationwide, according to a report by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Fueled by anti-immigrant sentiment, the number of hate groups spiked to 888 last year, up from 844 in 2006, capping a 48 percent increase since 2000. Additionally, about 300 anti-immigration groups have mushroomed in the last three years, the report notes.
“America is being destroyed from within by a modern version of Genghis Khan’s army,” the Emigration Party of Nevada told Southern Poverty Law Center. Don Pauly, the group’s leader, wants to send sniper teams to the border and sterilize Mexican women after a first child, the center reports.
Mainstream politicians and pundits contribute to the growth of hate groups by spreading racist propaganda about immigrants. And many of these new hate groups have sprouted in border states like California, Arizona and Texas, the center noted, where a growing number of Americans are inflamed by the immigration debate.
The FBI also reported a spike in crimes against immigrants, particularly against Hispanics. The agency said there was a 35 percent rise in hate crimes against Latinos from 2003 to 2006.
“The immigration debate has turned ugly and the result has been a growth in white supremacist hate groups and anti-Latino hate crime,” Mark Potok, director of the center’s Intelligence Project, told the Associated Press. “The majority of anti-Latino hate crimes are carried out by people who think they’re attacking immigrants, and very likely undocumented immigrants.”
The most prominent group to make the center’s list is the Federation for American Immigration Reform, or FAIR, which made the list for promoting conspiracy theories and racist propaganda centered on immigrants, according to the law center.
“Apparently, you can’t even articulate an argument for immigration reform without being smeared,” Dan Stein, FAIR’s president, told AP.
