by Adolfo Flores
Anthony Miranda
Hate crimes against Hispanics reached an all-time high in 2006, according to an annual survey released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Such crimes against Latinos spiked by 10.3 percent over 2005, with Latino victims increasing by 12 percent, the FBI reported.
Latino law enforcement and civil rights authorities attribute the trend to constant and strong anti-immigrant messages promoted by the media.
Last year Latinos comprised 62.8 percent of victims of crimes motivated 5by ethnic and national origin bias.
“Two factors contribute to this’” Anthony Miranda, executive chairman of the National Latino Officers Association, told Weekly Report. “The first is that Latinos are becoming more visible.” The second, he said, is that “people are equating anti-terrorism with anti-immigration,” and those who question the notion are viewed as anti-American or anti-establishment.
John Trasviña, president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, stated, “Anti-immigrant hatred heard on the radio and cable shows reaches America’s neighborhoods with real consequences.”
Blurring the line between undocumented immigrants and terrorists, U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo (Colo.), a candidate in the GOP presidential primary, released a campaign ad depicting a hooded individual blowing up a shopping mall.
“There are consequences to open borders beyond the 20 million aliens who have come to take our jobs,” a narrator says.
In total, there were 7,722 hate-related crimes based on bias against a particular race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity/ national origin, or physical or mental disability reported nationally in 2006 Of those, 51.8 percent were racially motivated, 18.9 percent were motivated by religion, 15.5 percent by sexual orientation and 12.7 percent were motivated by an ethnic/ national origin bias.
There was a 7.3 percent increase in hate crimes in 2006 over 2005.
Of the 7~330 known offenders, 53.6 percent were white and 20.6 percent were black. Race was unknown for 12.9 percent and other races accounted for the rest of the known offenders.
“Heightened anti-immigrant sentiment has blocked immigration reform and seeks to turn local police into immigration law enforcers thus making it more difficult for victims to report crimes’” Trasviña pointed out. “The FBI report should serve as a wakeup call to our nation’s leaders to take action on comprehensive immigration reform, reduce tensions and safeguard the basic civil rights and liber- ties of all Americans.”
Additional findings of racial-bias crimes, 66.4 percent of victims were blacks’21.0 percent whites’ 4.8 percent Asians and 1.5 percent American Indian/ Alaskan Natives.
Of sexual-orientationbias crimes~ 62.0 percent were against male homosexuals’20.9 percent general anti-homosexual bias, and 13.7 percent anti-female homosexual bias.
Of religious bias crimes, 65.4 percent were anti Jewish bias victims’ 11.9 percent anti-Islamic’ 4.9 percentanti-Catholic’3.7 percent anti-Protestant’ 0.5 percent anti-Atheist Agnostic’8.4 percent other’ 5.3 percent anti-multiple religions.
The Hate Crime Statistics Act, passed by Congress on April 23,1990, requires the Attorney General to compile data about crimes born from prejudice based on race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity, and more recently, people with disabilities.
A total of 12~620 agencies participated in reporting hate crimes in 2006. They covered more than 255 million people, accounting for 85.2 percent of the country’s population.
The report is at www.fbi.gov/ucr/ucr.htm. Hispanic Link.
