Hate Group Numbers Up by 54% Since 2000

The number of hate groups operating in the United States continued to rise in 2008 and has grown by 54 percent since 2000–an increase fueled last year by immigration fears, a failing economy and the successful campaign of Barack Obama, according to the “Year in Hate” issue of the SPLC’s Intelligence Report released today.

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Two new factors were introduced to the volatile hate movement in 2008: the faltering economy and the Obama campaign.

“Barack Obama’s election has inflamed racist extremists who see it as another sign that their country is under siege by non-whites,” said Mark Potok, editor of the Intelligence Report, a quarterly investigative journal that monitors the radical right. {snip}

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Extremists are also exploiting the economic crisis, spreading propaganda that blames minorities and immigrants for the subprime mortgage meltdown. {snip}

{snip} The issue examines the widespread media reporting of a false claim that undocumented immigrants held 5 million bad mortgages and were, therefore, responsible for the subprime mortgage crisis.

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