Washington Post:
U.S. civil rights leaders said yesterday that an increase in hate crimes committed in recent years against Hispanics and people perceived to be immigrants "correlates closely" to the nation's increasingly contentious debate over immigration.
Hate crimes targeting Hispanic Americans rose 40 percent from 2003 to 2007, the most recent year for which FBI statistics are available, from 426 to 595 incidents, marking the fourth consecutive year of increases.
The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund issued a report that faulted anti-immigrant rhetoric in the media and mobilization of extremist groups on the Internet. The conference said that some groups advocating for tighter immigration laws have invoked "the dehumanizing, racist stereotypes and bigotry of hate groups."
Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, called the report "another salvo against free speech by the pro-amnesty coalition... to delegitimize any critic of mass immigration."
Hate crimes against Hispanics are up, but pointing that out is an attack on the free speech of anti-immigration types. I guess anything short of ignoring this fact is an affront to the very foundation of this great nation. If anti-immigrant rhetoric is making people crazy, you just better shut up about it -- because the only people afforded freedom of speech are those on the right. Making crap up about non-existent NAFTA superhighways and a plot by Mexico to reconquer the southwest is free speech. Pointing to documented facts isn't speech, it's an attack on speech. So you just shut up... [CLICK TO READ FULL POST]
