Hate Groups Turn Focus on Hispanic Immigrants
Majority of crimes not reported to law enforcement

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn.
Organized hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan have historically terrorized Blacks, Jews, homosexuals and others  around the country. But the recent influx of Hispanic immigrants to the Southeast has given White supremacist groups a new target, and officials say Hispanics are increasingly becoming targets of hate crimes.

Former Klansman Daniel Schertz, a 27-year-old from the southeast Tennessee town of South Pittsburg, was indicted in June on charges of building pipe bombs to kill Hispanic immigrants.

Imperial Wizard Billy Jeffery of the North Georgia White Knights denied any connection to the bomb plot and says he banished Schertz from the group, but he readily admits he isn’t happy with the flow of immigrants to the region.

“The Blacks fought for their civil rights. These illegal immigrants are coming in here and having everything just handed to them,” Jeffery says.

Advocates say there are no precise statistics on hate crimes against Hispanics. Victims don’t always call the police because of their sometimes precarious immigration status.

“People feel they will not be protected, and they are risking deportation,” says John Bernstein, director of federal policy at the National Immigration Law Center in Washington. “That is more and more a problem with hate crimes.”

Hate crimes against Hispanic immigrants have been common in other parts of the country, but Southern states saw their Hispanic populations boom in the 1990s. Arkansas’ Hispanic population rose by 337 percent during the decade, Georgia’s by 300 percent, Tennessee’s by 278 percent and South Carolina’s by 211 percent.

One of the first signs of organized anti-Hispanic activity in the South occurred in Gainesville, Ga., in 1998, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, an Alabama group that tracks hate crimes.