ADL Expands Efforts to Aid Hispanic Community in Reporting Hate Crimes

Phoenix, AZ, July 10, 2017 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today announced a set of new initiatives in partnership with Latin American consulates in the United States that will help expand efforts in the Hispanic community to report hate crimes and incidents.

In addition to providing training on responding to harassment and hate crimes for staff members at Mexican, Central and South American consulates across the U.S., ADL is lending technology and know-how for establishing online Spanish-language reporting tools that will enable victims of hate incidents to report them quickly, confidentially and in real-time.

Those efforts were announced earlier today by Jonathan A. Greenblatt, ADL CEO, in remarks to the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), the nation’s leading civil rights organization serving the Hispanic community. Mr. Greenblatt gave the keynote address at their annual convention in Phoenix.

“In times of trouble we turn to family. I’m afraid these are, indeed, troubled times,” Mr. Greenblatt told the gathering of nearly 2,000 NCLR leaders, activists and supporters. “We are proud to be working closely with Latin American consulates across the country to help them establish reporting mechanisms on their websites so that anyone who experiences or witnesses a hate incident can have a place to report them in their language. This will help our country better track information on hate incidents and activities in the U.S., including crimes that people might otherwise be afraid to report to law enforcement.”

ADL will be lending expertise to foreign consulates representing Mexico and various other Central and South American countries to establish consistent reporting mechanisms on their websites. Immigrants who experience hate or a bias crime, but who may be uncomfortable sharing that experience with law enforcement, will be able to access the online form for privately sharing information.

The data captured on the Spanish-language forms will be aggregated and analyzed to provide consular officials, Hispanic civil rights organizations, law enforcement and others who advocate against hate crime with real-time information on anti-immigrant and anti-Hispanic attacks in America. The forms are expected to be up and running on a number of consular sites by mid-August.

In the last 18 months, ADL has delivered trainings to more than 150 protection and community affairs officers at Mexican consulates, and has trained the staff of the Mexican consulates in Las Vegas, Phoenix, San Francisco, Sacramento, Philadelphia, Atlanta and New York. ADL is now working to deliver additional trainings to all 50 Mexican consulates in the U.S. and is expanding those efforts to include other Latin-American countries as well. ADL’s trainings share information and resources on anti-immigrant and extremist groups in America, and provide guidance on how to effectively respond to and report incidents and hate crimes.

Since 2006, ADL has been collaborating with NCLR on a national level, and during their annual convention the League has provided workshops on extremist and hate rhetoric aimed at Hispanics and Latinos, addressing security concerns, and keeping community institutions safe.