[Marxism] Hate crimes linked to immigration debate

[Greg McDonald <sabocat59@xxxxxxx>]

  Hate crimes linked to immigration debate

By DAVID CRARY, AP National WriterMon Mar 10, 1:16 AM ET

Anti-immigrant sentiment is fueling nationwide increases in the  
number of hate groups and the number of hate crimes targeting  
Latinos, a watchdog group said Monday.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, in a report titled "The Year in  
Hate," said it counted 888 hate groups in its latest tally, up from  
844 in 2006 and 602 in 2000.

The most prominent of the organizations newly added to the list, the  
Federation for American Immigration Reform, or FAIR, vehemently  
rejected the "hate group" label, and questioned the law center's  
motives. FAIR said the center was using smear tactics to boost  
donations and stifle legitimate debate on immigration.

"Their banner may be 'Stop the hate' but it's really 'Stop the  
debate,'" said FAIR's president, Dan Stein. "Apparently you can't  
even articulate an argument for immigration reform without being  
smeared."

The law center's report contends there is a link between anti- 
immigrant activism and the significant rise in hate crimes against  
Latinos in recent years. According to the latest FBI statistics, 819  
people were victimized by anti-Latino hate crimes in 2006, compared  
with 595 in 2003.

"The immigration debate has turned ugly and the result has been a  
growth in white supremacist hate groups and anti-Latino hate crime,"  
said Mark Potok, director of the law center's Intelligence Project.  
"The majority of anti-Latino hate crimes are carried out by people  
who think they're attacking immigrants, and very likely undocumented  
immigrants."

Potok said hate groups were proliferating because a growing number of  
Americans were agitated by the immigration debate. He said many new  
groups had appeared in the border states of California, Texas and  
Arizona where illegal immigration has been a particularly volatile  
issue.

Critics of the law center, including FAIR, contend that the periodic  
reports on hate groups exaggerate the threat to public safety and  
inflate the total by including entities that are little more than Web  
sites or online chatrooms.

Potok acknowledged that some of the groups may be small and said it  
is impossible for outsiders to gauge the membership of most of the  
groups.

Among the largest categories of hate groups, Potok said, are neo- 
Nazi, white nationalist, racist skinhead and those with links to the  
Ku Klux Klan.

FAIR, which is frequently quoted by the media and whose officials  
often have testified before Congress, advocates an end to illegal  
immigration and tighter controls on legal immigration. In pursuing  
these goals, it says, "there should be no favoritism toward or  
discrimination against any person on the basis of race, color, or  
creed."

The law center said its decision to designate FAIR a hate group was  
based in part on the ideology of various people who established it,  
worked for it or donated to it over its nearly 30-year history. The  
center has issued a detailed report outlining its allegations,  
although little of that report deals with FAIR's recent activities.

The center's critique of FAIR was endorsed by a major Latino group,  
the National Council of La Raza. The council's vice president for  
advocacy and legislation, Cecilia Munoz, said FAIR's leaders were  
polished in public forums, but represented "a very unsavory set of  
views."

Stein described the assertions of bigotry as "a total fantasy."

Both FAIR and law center are relatively well known in the ranks of  
advocacy groups. The law center, which started as a small civil  
rights group in 1971, has amassed an endowment fund totaling $200  
million as of October and it received nearly $29 million in grants  
and contributions in fiscal 2007.

FAIR claims more than 250,000 members and reported more than $4  
million in contributions in 2006.

Stein, in addition to rejecting the "hate group" label, questioned  
the law center's linking of anti-immigrant sentiment to the recent  
increase in anti-Latino hate crimes. The data on such crimes is  
inexact and prone to misinterpretation, and some of the incidents  
classified as anti-Latino hate crimes involved violence between  
Latino gangs and non-Latino rivals, Stein said.

The law center has listed numerous incidents not fitting that  
profile. In one such assault, in February 2007, three men broke into  
a mobile home in Wright City, Mo., yelling "immigration enforcement"  
and beat an illegal immigrant from Mexico with a piece of lumber,  
according to police reports.

In Arkansas, where the Latino population has grown rapidly, there  
have been several recent violent incidents. In December, police said,  
a Hispanic man was fatally beaten in Lowell, Ark., after his nephew  
spoke Spanish to the assailant's girlfriend.

___

On the Net:

Southern Poverty Law Center: http://www.splcenter.org/

FAIR: http://www.fairus.org/

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