WASHINGTON – Hate crimes against Hispanics increased by almost 40 percent between 2003 and 2007, according to a report released Tuesday by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund.

The report is not only an alert on the increasing number of crimes against Latinos, but also against immigrants, Jews, homosexuals and other minorities being committed by ever more numerous white-supremacy groups.

The number of hate groups has grown by 54 percent since 2000, “an increase fueled last year by immigration fears, a failing economy and the successful campaign of Barack Obama, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center,” the report says.

The SPLC in 2008 identified 926 militant groups spreading hate against minorities compared with 602 such groups eight years previously.

The president of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, Wade Henderson, was one of several people who joined Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Monday at a press conference to plead for the quick approval of a federal hate-crimes statute.

“Now is the moment for Congress to act, “ Henderson said.

At the same event, Michael Lieberman, Washington counsel for the Anti-Defamation League, said that among the more than 7,500 hate crimes documented in 2007, crimes of racial prejudice were the most numerous, followed by attacks related to religion and to sexual orientation.

The study presented Tuesday shows that between 2003 and 2007, hate crimes committed against Hispanics increased by almost 40 percent.

“Of all hate crimes reported in the United States in 2007, 7.8 percent were committed against Hispanics. Of hate crimes in 2007 motivated by bias due to the victim’s ethnicity or national origin, nearly 60 percent were committed against Hispanics, up nearly 50 percent from 2003,” the study says.

The document gives details of crimes motivated by hate and prejudice against African Americans, Hispanics, Jews, people of Asia-Pacific background, against Arabs, Muslims and Sikhs, against gays and transsexuals, the disabled and women.

In the almost 20 years since a law was passed establishing the registration and statistical records for this type of crime, “the number of hate crimes reported has consistently ranged around 7,500 or more annually – that’s nearly one every hour of every day,” the report said.

“However, and of particular concern, the number of hate crimes committed against Hispanics and those perceived to be immigrants has increased each of the past four years for which FBI data is available,” the study’s authors said. EFE