New York, NY, May 24, 2006 … As the national debate over immigration continues to hold the national spotlight, neo-Nazis and white supremacists have ratcheted up their anti-Hispanic action, using everything from Internet video games to street demonstrations and other confrontational tactics in an effort to exploit the debate as a means to spread hate. Their goal is to draw new attention to their hateful notions about minorities and hopes for making America a nation for "Whites only." The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which monitors and reports on the activities of far-right extremists, has updated its online report, "Extremists Declare 'Open Season' on Immigrants" with new information showing that extremists continue to focus their energies on Hispanic hate-mongering through racist rhetoric, crude stereotypes, and threats of using violence to intimidate illegal immigrants.
"As we have gotten deeper into the discussion on immigration, the white supremacist movement has reinvigorated itself and closed ranks around the cause of fighting immigration and turning America into a nation for 'Whites only'", said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director. "The immigration debate has provided the perfect storm for America's white supremacist fringe to recruit, organize and sow the seeds of racial discord and hate."
On the Internet, right-wing extremists have championed video games such as "Border Patrol," where the aim is to shoot to kill Mexicans as they attempt to cross the border, and used their Web sites to spread hateful anti-Hispanic messages. In the real world, white supremacist leaders have organized protests and encouraged their followers to act violently against immigrants or anyone of Hispanic origin.
Anti-Hispanic Violence
ADL's report cites two recent incidents as the latest in a multi-year trend of increasing violence targeting Hispanics:
•A teenager was arrested in East Hampton, Long Island, on April 29 after he allegedly threatened a Hispanic teenager with a machete and chased a second teenager with a chain saw while shouting racial epithets. Described by classmates as a skinhead, the alleged perpetrator had posted to the Internet photographs of himself posing as a Nazi and adorning a shed with swastikas.
•David Henry Tuck, 18, and Keith Robert Turner, 17, were arrested and charged with aggravated sexual assault in the brutal April 22 attack of a teenage Hispanic high school student in Houston. The victim was beaten and sodomized with a plastic pipe from a patio umbrella, then kicked in the head with steel-toed boots.
White Supremacist Protests
In recent weeks, white supremacists have organized protests, rallies and other events across the country:
•In Seattle, Washington, and Las Vegas, Nevada, members of the neo-Nazi National Vanguard held anti-immigration protests on May 20. On its Web site, the National Vanguard declared that day to be a "day of protest against George W. Bush's plan to destroy America," calling the president's immigration proposals a "sellout of the nation."
•In Keene, New Hampshire, New England members of the Arkansas-based neo-Nazi group White Revolution held a self-described "anti-invasion" demonstration on May 7 to protest "the invasion of America by illegal non white hordes.'
•In Russellville, Alabama, members of the Alabama chapter of the Indiana-based National Knights of the Ku Klux Klan held an anti-immigration rally on May 6, yelling "Let's get rid of the Mexicans!" After the rally, the Klansmen burned a cross in a field outside of town.
•In Montgomery, Alabama, the neo-Confederate group League of the South and the Coalition against Illegal Immigration together organized an anti-immigration "Cinco de Mayo" demonstration on May 5. The event was promoted in the racist and anti-Semitic newspaper, "First Freedom."
•In Greenville, South Carolina, the racist Council of Conservative Citizens held an anti-immigration demonstration on April 29 in front of the offices of Republican Congressman Lindsey Graham, where they burned Mexican flags and displayed signs such as "More INS, Less IRS," "Vote for Pedro to Go Home," and "I Didn't Fight in Iraq for Illegal Aliens."