Report: 6 hate groups operating in New Mexico

LAS CRUCES, N.M. (AP) _ A nation group that monitors hate groups says New Mexico has six such active organizations operating in the state.

The Las Cruces Sun-News reports (http://goo.gl/5LcKyh) that the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center has identified two Ku Klux Klan cells, two anti-Muslim groups, a skinhead group and an anti-Semitic group in New Mexico.

The center named the groups in the agency’s 2013 report released this spring.

SPLC lead fellow Mark Potok says one of the groups is a racist skinhead organization in northwest New Mexico.

The report also says there are two active Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan groups in New Mexico, including one in Silver City.

The center defines an organization as a hate group if it has “beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people.”