The number of hate crimes is on the rise and is increasingly being fueled by anti-immigrant— particularly anti-Latino — sentiment, according to a new report from the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The number of hate groups operating in America rose to 888 last year, up from 844 in 2006, and 602 in 2006, the Southern Poverty Law Center said in “The Year in Hate,” an intelligence report released today.

At the same time, new FBI statistics suggest a 35 percent rise in hate crimes against Latinos between 2003 and 2006, and experts believe that such crimes are typically carried out by people who think they are attacking immigrants, the release said.

According to the Associated Press, the most prominent of the organizations newly added to the list, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, or FAIR, vehemently rejected the “hate group” label, and questioned the law center’s motives. FAIR said the center was using smear tactics to boost donations and stifle legitimate debate on immigration.

According to the SPLC’s report, there were 26 hate groups counted in New York State in 2007, including neo-Nazi groups such as the Aryan Nations; the anti-immigrant group, Save Our State; the Jewish Defense League, identified as a general hate group; black separatist groups such as the Nation of Islam; radical traditionalist Catholic group called The Fatima Crusader/International Fatima Rosary Crusade, and Castle Hill Publishers, identified as Holocaust deniers.

“Hate groups continue to successfully exploit the immigration debate to their advantage, even though the immigration issue has largely disappeared from the presidential debate,” said Mark Potok, editor of the SPLC’s Intelligence Report, an investigative journal that monitors the radical right, stated in the press release. “The fact is that they’ve been aided and abetted by mainstream pundits and politicians who give these haters a platform for their propaganda.”

The greatest growth in hate groups came in California, Arizona and Texas, the report said.