Hundreds of guestworkers from India, lured by false promises of permanent U.S. residency, paid tens of thousands of dollars each to obtain temporary jobs at Gulf Coast shipyards only to find themselves forced into involuntary servitude and living in overcrowded, guarded labor camps, according to a class action lawsuit filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
SPLC President Richard Cohen and Editor of SPLC's Intelligence Report Mark Potok will host a live webcast about the recently released Year in Hate report.
Led by three states on the southern border, the number of hate groups operating in America has swelled by 48 percent since 2000, a staggering increase mainly attributable to the anti-immigrant fervor sweeping the country, according to the "Year in Hate" issue of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Report released today.
About 30 members and supporters of the Nationalist Party, a white supremacist group headed by Mississippi lawyer Richard Barrett, marched on Martin Luther King Jr. Day in Jena, La., the site of a march by more than 20,000 anti-racist protesters last Sept. 20.
The Intelligence Project identified 131 "Patriot" groups that were active in 2007.
