Ku Klux Klan Using Anti-Immigrant Hate to Recruit New Members

Never underestimate the foulness of the far right.  While parading around extolling their own supposed godliness and piety, these folks traffic principally in hate and division.  And anyone who isn't a white, heterosexual Christian is open to the focus of their hatred.  A case in point?  The Tea Party/Christofascists are in most cases virulently anti-immigrant - read anti-Hispanic - and now the Ku Klux Klan is using this racial hatred to recruit new members.  Yes, it's sick, but then so is today version of conservative Christianity which but for the degree of violence used is of a like mindset with fundamentalist Islam.  Think Progress looks at the KKK's new recruiting efforts.  Here are highlights:

Citing the issue of child arrivals through the U.S.-Mexico border, about 100 members of the Ku Klux Klan held a protest in North Carolina over the weekend to drum up support against immigration. The event was part of the organization’s latest campaign strategy to recruit new members. 

According to a local Fox affiliate, Klan members did not give a speech at the rally, opting instead to shout messages of white power and hate against “mixed breeds.” At the same time, the Fox reporter said that immigration advocate counter-protesters across the street sang the gospel song, “Hallelujah.” The event at the Troy County Courthouse devolved into a shouting match between Klan members and counter-protesters who were separated by law enforcement officials. For over a month, the KKK has advertised the Troy rally, calling on local residents to “save our land, join the Klan.” The rally drew between 400 and 500 immigration advocates counter-protesters. 

[L]ast month, the group left fliers and bags of candy on driveways in South Carolina, urging residents to call a “Klan Hotline” to disseminate hateful anti-immigrant rhetoric. The organization, fast dwindling in members and funded by nativist groups, has seen membership sharply drop since 2010. The KKK began targeting immigrants in July as part of its newest recruiting tool that they hold three times a year. In spite of having a website that still features cross-burning and hood-wearing, the Klan has even tried to reach out to black people with its anti-immigrant message. 

One Klan member from North Carolina told Al Jazeera, “If we pop a couple of ’em off and leave the corpses laying on the border, maybe they’ll see we’re serious about stopping immigrants.”

Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), told the Orange County Register that the Loyal White Knights are trying to unite Americans around demonizing undocumented immigrants. 

The KKK is not the only extremist group to target immigrants this summer. Most recently, right-wing militiamen took to the Texas-Mexico border to confront border crossers. One militia leader said, “You see an illegal. You point your gun dead at him, right between the eyes, and you say, ‘Get back across the border or you will be shot.’” 

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has designated the KKK as a hate group. The number of KKK groups diminished since the 1960s. The SPLC estimates that there are about 5,000-8,000 members “split among dozens of different – and often warring – organizations that use the Klan name.”