The SPLC says the ANTIs are guilty of hate crimes. USA Today Reports: By David Crary, Associated Press
NEW YORK — 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 websites 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."
NEW YORK — 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 websites 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."
Readers, Are these Hate Crimes or is this squelching Freedom of Speech?
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23 comments:
The Southern Poverty Law Center is a big crock. They've put Chris Kobach on their list of haters because he is the lawyer who has represented Arizona and other localities in writing their illegal immigrant laws. They'll label anyone they don't agree with as a hater or racist and it makes me furious.
Also, I'm going to do some checking on the hate crime stats. I swear in the last month I saw stats showing the hate crimes had actually gone down in the past couple of years. It might have been a FBI site. Will check into this further and report back.
Anti-immigrant? The first sentence starts right out with a lie. This is about illegal aliens not immigrants.
If there is a rise in hate crimes against Latinos it is because there are so many of them here illegally now that Latinos bring suspicion on themselves. If they instead took a stand with their fellow Americans against illegal immigration they would gain respect rather than hate. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
Hate crimes can go both ways, The larger and faster the increase in a group of peoples, the more dominant they become, the more they are likely to have crimes committed against them. As there population increases, so does the risk of crime. How many 'hate crimes' are committed by there own ethnicity that go unreported?? How many may be staged?? (like the black professor who hung the noose on her own door) Maybe the SPLC should check into that as well instead of only espousing a portion of what they should be looking at. If there definition of hate crimes is that of NCLR's definition and postings on there web site, then any crime against a Hispanic is considered a hate crime and is subject to there ridicule.
If they are calling "hate speech" a hate crime, then yes, they are squelching free speech and stating that by not agreeing with them then the "others' are wrong, hateful, xenophobic, racists, etc.....
Hate crime statistics for Hispanics:
First, in order to suggest an artificially large increase in the raw number of hate crimes, the SPLC selects 2003 as its base year, one of lowest years on record for hate crimes against Hispanics. If one compares the number of hate crimes between 1995 (the earliest report available on the FBI's website) and 2006 (the most recent statistical year available), one would see that the number of hate crimes has increased only 17 percent.
But even this is not the whole story. The SPLC conveniently forgets to index the raw hate crime data with the population, a step always taken by the FBI to more accurately depict an increase or decrease in crime. Thus, when one indexes a 17 percent increase in hate crimes against Hispanics with a 67 percent increase in the Hispanic population between 1995 and 2006, it becomes clear that the rate of hate crimes against Hispanics has in fact dropped dramatically - by about 40 percent.
You can only hate if your white
Dee, sorry this is very off-topic but I can't find an e-mail address for you. A republican Atlantic blogger named Ross Douthat just proposed that republicans become more moderate and advocate a position you and me discussed before (under my name pjgoober): Earned legalization + border security + moderate reductions in future legal immigrants. You seemed open to the idea when we discussed it, if not outright supportive of it. I am sure that your thoughts on the proposal would be welcome in the comments there.
http://rossdouthat.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/03/the_politics_of_immigration.php#comments
Again, sorry to hijack the thread.
Kris Kobach is one of the worst ANTI zealots. He has a history of supporting the KKK and supports many restrictionist laws.
His own Kansas colleges have picketed against him for his racist stance. He has no credibility at all!
Pat,
Sorry. No excuse for Hate Crimes!!
PJ,
Thank you.
I will go to the website and check it out.
My email is
dee_perezscott@yahoo.com
if you want to email me in the future.
I am not excusing anything, dee. I am merely explaining why Hispanics are viewed with suspicion and contempt these days. It's their own fault. It is unfortunate that the loyal Hispanics have to suffer along with the rest. Too bad there aren't more Hispanics who go along with the philosophy of "you don't speak for me".
The question that interests me is why nearly all of Latin America has such a low quality of life. I don't just mean Mexico - or any country that has had, say, a civil war in the past 25 years - but ALL of them. Across the board there are fundamental and chronic problems. Why??
"Kris Kobach is one of the worst ANTI zealots. He has a history of supporting the KKK and supports many restrictionist laws.
His own Kansas colleges have picketed against him for his racist stance. He has no credibility at all!"
I'm going to take real serious objection to the above statement. It's a serious accusation that he has a history of supporting the KKK and I challenge you to defend it ! He's a law professor, worked for the Attorney General of the United States and is head of the Republican Party in Kansas, which is where I live, as you know. In no way would he be associated with the KKK given his positions I listed above.
I don't give a damn about what college students do but I do care about facts vs spreading untruths that defame a person.
I must say, this upsets me greatly.
Furthermore, these kinds of accusations are NOT the way to seek cooperation and find a meaningful resolution to the problem of illegal immigration in the United States.
Dianne,
I was from KC too.
You know I am very familiar with Kobach and what he supports.
You know about the demonstrations against him.
There are tons of reference on the web. Just google him. KC Blue Blog has written about him recently too.
Additionally, Kobach is the one who has chosen to make so many stands and is a leader in many ANTI groups.
I am not here to judge him, but this is well reported.
I agree with you that we have to stop all the anger in these discussions. It starts with people like Kobach and others who make it their mission to demonstrate as he does.
Dee says:
"I am not here to judge him, but this is well reported."
Yet she calls him a "Zealot". Isn't that judging??
So, Dee, because Kobach doesn't agree with your opinions on 'Illegal Aliens', you judge him of being a Zealot. You label him as a fanatic due to his standing up for the rule of law and the meaning of the Constitution. Remind me who the person with anger here is again.
Would I be safe to assume that you call yourself Dee after the Zealot Morris Dees, with Dee being the 'woman' side of him?
There is absolutely NOTHING to connect Kris Kobach with the KKK. He's referred to as KKKobach by pro-illegal immigants. That's defamatory and a far cry from proof.
I thought Patriot was a little hard on you, Dee, but I'm changing my mind.
The NCLR comes out with their list of hate speech words and yet the pro-illegals call those of us for the rule of law all kinds of hate speech names such as racists, xenophobes, KKKers, etc. Bunch of hypocrites!
The NCLR comes out with their list of hate speech words and yet the pro-illegals call those of us for the rule of law all kinds of hate speech names such as racists, xenophobes, KKKers, etc. Bunch of hypocrites!
Morris Dees is a Civil Rights hero!
Liquid, I was from KC so I am very familiar with Kobach and the number of demonstrations and news articles about him.
Dianne,
For you, I will lay off Kobach.
I am very familiar with him and there has been plenty of coverage about him in the local KC blogs as I am sure you know. But for you, I will not talk about him again.
PS: Just as an fyi, I still stay in contact with my KC Blogger friends, like Tony and KC Blue Blogger, but you probably already know this.
we the people are fine with the idea of people trying to better themselves,but there is way to much fence jumping going on and its giving some mexican citizens a bad name. so down with the brown!
predictable rob, you of all ppl should know that we live in the USA, and when you say down with the brown you show your true colors and racism, so typical, and thats why I have an issue with most ANTI's because you look to RACE FIRST and with Immigration you have FREE REIGN to show ALL YOUR RACISM and if your called on it, you can re-act to being called on it by saying whoever calls you on it that that person is un-American, WHAT A CROCK!!!
Everyone says hate. The reason for hate is that when people tear down America, our society we let them. They do not try to better their own, except a few. U think they give two shits about what our country stands for. Evertything now has to be split into two langauges, why? If u go to mexico and other south American countries, they don't like it? why should we? So yeah, people are sick of our country getting rapped by people who can't get a grip on their own society. All they bring is crime,drugs,gangs,and people who don't care about our ways of life. They damn sure won't spill any blood for our Red, White,and Blue! Finally, spend a few billion and plug that fence and river up or the next big issue will be osama and his crew disguised as "illegal immigrants" easily making their way through every big city in the country with God knows what. How would people feel then?
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