MONTGOMERY, Ala. December 12, 2022 – The Southern Poverty Law Center’s President and CEO Margaret Huang issued the following statement responding to the FBI 2021 Hate Crime Statistics Act (HCSA) report released today. While underreporting of hate crimes to the FBI has been an ongoing problem, about which SPLC has consistently raised the alarm, the failure of state […]
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Legal advocates file lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Florida’s migrant relocation program
December 1, 2022 – Today, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Leontire & Associates, P.C. and the Criminal Justice Institute (CJI) of Harvard Law School filed a federal lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Jared W. Perdue, Secretary of the Florida Department of Transportation, in their official capacities and on behalf of nonprofit […]
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Susan Corke: Southern Poverty Law Center Statement on Oath Keepers Seditious Conspiracy Trials
MONTGOMERY, Ala. September 28, 2022— Susan Corke, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) Intelligence Project, released the following statement ahead of the start of U.S. v. Rhodes, the trial of Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes along with group members Caldwell, Harrelson, Meggs and Watkins, accused of seditious conspiracy. Our democracy suffered a terrible, deadly attack on Jan. 6, 2021, […]
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New Anti-Voter Law Creates Barriers to Voting for Florida Communities
Caren Short, senior supervising attorney for Voting Rights with the Southern Poverty Law Center and Michelle Kanter Cohen, policy director and senior counsel with Fair Elections Center, released the following statements on Florida’s SB 524, which was signed into law last night by Governor Ron DeSantis: “The decision in our case makes clear that the state […]
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SPLC Releases Annual Year in Hate & Extremism Report: When Hate Goes Mainstream
MONTGOMERY, Ala. March 9, 2022 – According to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) The Year in Hate & Extremism 2021 report released today: hate and antigovernment extremism have gone mainstream, infecting the national and political dialogue. The new report identified 733 hate and 488 anti-government groups actively operating across the United States– a decrease […]
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Conviction of men who shot Ahmaud Arbery a necessary step, but issues in our justice system must still be addressed
ATLANTA November 24, 2021 – Today a jury convicted Gregory McMichael, Travis McMichael and William “Roddie” Bryan for the murder of Ahmaud Arbery. The trio, all of whom are white, jumped into a truck and chased Arbery, a Black man who was jogging through a south Georgia neighborhood outside of Brunswick, and then shot him. The three men were all charged with nine criminal counts, including: four counts […]
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Advocates Decry Biden Administration’s Appeal Fighting Order to Vaccinate Medically Vulnerable People in ICE Detention
Yesterday, the Biden Administration took the surprising step of filing an appeal to a federal court order requiring U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to vaccinate medically vulnerable people in its custody. The filing was in Fraihat v. ICE, which challenges the inhumane and traumatic experience of ICE detention, affecting tens of thousands across the country. On June […]
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Rights Advocates Seek Relief for Thousands of Asylum Seekers Left Behind by Biden Administration Wind-down of Remain in Mexico Policy
Los Angeles, CA – Immigration advocates filed an amended complaint in a class action lawsuit challenging the continuing effects of the “Remain in Mexico” policy on asylum-seeking individuals who remain stranded outside the United States and legal service providers seeking to represent them. Despite formally ending the policy, the Biden administration’s “wind-down” process has left behind thousands of people who […]
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SPLC: SCOTUS Brnovich Ruling Further Undermines VRA, Congressional Action Needed to Restore and Strengthen VRA
Today, the Supreme Court of the United States issued a decision in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee and Arizona Republican Party v. Democratic National Committee. The SPLC filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of the plaintiffs and against two Arizona laws that ban ballot assistance and throw out a voter’s entire ballot solely if they mistakenly voted in the wrong […]
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Following Government’s Forced ‘Death Flight’ Deportations and Torture of Black Immigrants, Advocates Seek Answers
WASHINGTON, D.C. April 26, 2021– Civil rights attorneys today submitted a pair of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to the federal government seeking information on the government’s use of force, including the use of pepper spray, to coerce Cameroonian asylum seekers in custody to sign their own deportation paperwork and the subsequent Immigration and Customs […]
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Efrén Olivares, SPLC: Immigration Coverage Largely Ignoring Rights and Humanity of People Seeking Asylum
WASHINGTON, D.C. March 29, 2021 – The following statement is from Efrén Olivares, deputy legal director of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) Immigrant Justice Project. Recent national discourse around immigration has largely ignored the real issue at hand: the rights, dignity, and humanity of families, children, and other people seeking protection. Many lawmakers and […]
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Nancy Abudu: Georgia Republican lawmakers use dangerous conspiracy theories of voter fraud as an excuse to restrict voting
ATLANTA, Ga. March 8, 2021 – Today, the Georgia Senate passed on a 29-20 vote SB 241, another sweeping piece of legislation that will end no-excuse vote-by-mail, mandate new photo ID requirements, and create a “voter fraud” hotline that would increase opportunities for voter intimidation. The move follows the Georgia House of Representative’s passage of the other omnibus election changes bill HB 531 last week, which goes even further in restricting absentee […]
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The Year in Hate and Extremism 2020: Organized hate groups became more difficult to track amid COVID and migration to online networks
MONTGOMERY, Ala. February 1, 2021– In the final year of a Trump presidency that propelled racist conspiracy theories and white nationalist ideology into the political mainstream, far-right extremists continued to migrate to online networks as the number of active hate groups declined for a second year, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s annual Year in Hate and Extremism report released today. But the levels of […]
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SPLC Action Fund President: Attempted Coup Displays Organized, Extremist Violence Plaguing the United State
WASHINGTON, D.C. January 7, 2021 – Thousands of extremists violently occupied the Capitol complex in Washington D.C. yesterday to prevent lawmakers from certifying President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election. Margaret Huang, President and Chief Executive Officer of the SPLC Action Fund, issued the following statement in response: “White supremacist hate groups often justify […]
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Kelli Garcia: Historic Nomination of Congresswoman Debra Haaland Focuses New Attention on Environmental Justice
WASHINGTON, December 18, 2020 – President-elect Joe Biden announced that he will nominate Congresswoman Debra Haaland (D-NM), an enrolled member of the Pueblo of Laguna people who currently serves as Vice Chair of the House Committee on Natural Resources, to lead the Department of the Interior. The following statement is from Kelli Garcia, Policy Counsel […]
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SPLC Marks Five-year Anniversary of Groundbreaking Suit Finding Gay “Conversion” Program Unconscionable and Fraudulent
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. December 17, 2020 – Tomorrow is the five-year anniversary of the settlement in Michael Ferguson, et al., v. JONAH, a first-of-its-kind lawsuit brought by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and co-counsel partners on behalf of four young men and two of their mothers against Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing (JONAH), a […]
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ICE Forcing More Asylum Seekers to Sign Deportation Paperwork as Another Deportation Flight to Cameroon Looms
NEW ORLEANS, November 9, 2020 – On Thursday, November 5, immigrant rights organizations filed a new multi-individual Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL) complaint with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Civil Rights and Civil liberties (CRCL) and DHS Office of the Inspector General (OIG), detailing Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) continued use […]
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SPLC Report Finds 23 Million Outstanding Mail-In Ballots
MONTGOMERY, Ala. November 2, 2020 – The latest analysis released this afternoon by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) finds that, a day before Election Day, there are still 23 million people who have an outstanding mail ballot that they have not returned. “With the final day of in-person voting set to begin in just […]
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SPLC Investigation Reveals White House Deputy Comms Director Julia Hahn Had Connections to White Nationalist Movement
WASHINGTON, October 21, 2020 — An investigation published today by the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) Hatewatch reveals that President Trump’s Deputy Communications Director Julia Hahn had connections to the white nationalist movement around the time she joined the White House as an aide. The report — written by Senior Investigative Reporter Michael Edison Hayden […]
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Civil Rights Groups Highlight New Cure Process for Mississippi Absentee Voters’ Ballots
JACKSON, Miss. October 20, 2020– Today in Mississippi, plaintiffs and civil rights groups that challenged Mississippi’s burdensome absentee ballot requirements celebrated new protections put in place for absentee voters as the state conducts an historic election during the COVID-19 pandemic. Plaintiffs in the Parham v. Watson litigation, which has been voluntarily dismissed by the plaintiffs, highlight a […]