Anti-immigrant hate groups are the most extreme of the hundreds of nativist and vigilante groups that have proliferated since the late 1990s, when anti-immigration xenophobia began to rise to levels not seen in the United States since the 1920s.
Although many groups criticize high levels of immigration and some (categorized by the Southern Poverty Law Center as “nativist extremist” groups) typically confront or harass individual immigrants and their supporters, anti-immigrant hate groups generally go further by pushing racist propaganda.
Most also subscribe to one of two conspiracy theories that have no basis in fact: the idea that Mexico has a secret “Plan de Aztlán” to “reconquer” the American Southwest, and another theory alleging that the leaders of Mexico, Canada and the United States are secretly planning to merge into a European Union-like entity that will be known as the “North American Union.”
Anti-immigrant hate groups are the most extreme of the hundreds of nativist and vigilante groups that have proliferated since the late 1990s, when anti-immigration xenophobia began to rise to levels not seen in the United States since the 1920s.
Although many groups criticize high levels of immigration and some (categorized by the Southern Poverty Law Center as “nativist extremist” groups) typically confront or harass individual immigrants and their supporters, anti-immigrant hate groups generally go further by pushing racist propaganda.
Most also subscribe to one of two conspiracy theories that have no basis in fact: the idea that Mexico has a secret “Plan de Aztlán” to “reconquer” the American Southwest, and another theory alleging that the leaders of Mexico, Canada and the United States are secretly planning to merge into a European Union-like entity that will be known as the “North American Union.”