A report entitled “Under Siege: Life for Low-Income Latinos in the South” that was released last month by the Southern Poverty Law Center found “systemic discrimination against Latinos” that constituted “a civil rights crisis.”

The report noted: “And as a result of relentless vilification in the media, Latinos are targeted for harassment by racist extremist groups, some of which are directly descended from the old guardians of white supremacy. ”

This finding is borne out by the F.B.I.’s hate crimes data, which show that the number of anti-Hispanic hate crimes have increased by half since 2003, while all other hate crimes have increased by 6 percent.