Across the country, many mobilize against illegal immigration

"Not surprisingly, when you see a movement like this emerge, you see extremists actively working to exploit that mainstream sentiment ... as a wedge to recruit or to propagandize," says Pitcavage.

Devin Burghart of the Center for New Community, a faith-based human rights organization in Chicago, estimates that the "Minutemen" have spawned at least 40 new groups in more than a dozen states.

In some areas, the rise in extreme anti-immigrant sentiment has resulted in attacks on Hispanic men, and conspiracy theories. One theory warns of "la reconquista," the invasion of the US southwest by Mexicans determined to take back territory lost in the 19th century.

Movement across the US-Mexico border has gone on for centuries, says Jean Rosenfeld, of the UCLA Center for the Study of Religion. But today, says Dr. Rosenfeld, "The nativist narrative ... signals a high tide of resurgent xenophobia."

While communities from New England to the Pacific Northwest are seeing notable growth in the Hispanic population, the most dramatic increases have been in the South, reports the Pew Hispanic Center. Most of those migrants are men who lack legal status, reports Pew.

Since the last census, the Hispanic population in Georgia has grown faster than any other state. The need for laborers to accommodate the residential and commercial building boom around Atlanta is a big part of that. The rate of Hispanic births is twice the official Hispanic population there. Anti-immigration activists opposed to multiculturalism have taken to calling the state "Georgiafornia."

In Washington this year, Congress and the Bush administration are expected to continue wrangling over immigration reform. But most of the action, observers say, is likely to be at the state level: legislation and ballot initiatives.

In 2004, Arizonans approved Proposition 200, which requires proof of citizenship to vote or to apply for state benefits. Up to a dozen states could have similar measures on the ballot this year. Lawmakers in North Carolina and New Hampshire are considering proposals authorizing state and local law officers to enforce federal immigration law. Massachusetts state representatives recently defeated a bill that would have allowed undocumented immigrant students to pay the same discounted college tuition rate as state residents.

In the post-9/11 era, attitudes toward foreign immigration are unique in some ways. But there are similarities to the 1850s and the early 20th century, when violent reactions to immigrants - charges that they took jobs, caused crime, and were not loyal to the US - were common.

"I mean from Germans to Irish Catholics to Jews to Hispanics virtually the same kinds of things have been said," says Mark Potok of Southern Poverty Law Center, who monitors extremist activities in the US. Such sentiment historically abates, says Pitcavage. "The sooner we get this cycle over with, the happier I'll be."

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