Hate Crimes Rise as Immigration Debate Heats Up (WaPo)

[struggle4progress]

By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 16, 2009; 2:30 PM

U.S. civil rights leaders today said an increase in hate crimes committed against Hispanics and people perceived to be immigrants in recent years "correlates closely" to the nation's increasingly contentious debate over immigration, faulting anti-immigrant rhetoric in the media and extremist group mobilization on the Internet.

Hate crimes targeted against Hispanic Americans increased 40 percent between 2003 and 2007, the most recent year in which FBI statistics are available, from 426 to 595 incidents, marking the fourth consecutive year of increases.

"As inflammatory rhetoric targets immigrants at the same time that the number of hate crimes against Hispanics and others perceived to be immigrants steadily increases, a heightened sense of fear has gripped Hispanic and other minority communities around the country," stated the report, issued by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund ...

The FBI reported in October that the number of hate crime incidents dropped in 2007 by about 1 percent, to 7,624. But violence against Latinos and gay people bucked the trend ...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/16/AR2009061601841.html

[MountainLaurel]

1. Not particularly surprising

Considering that white supremacists and eugenicists are back the major anti-immigration efforts.

http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=981