is national president of the Hispanic National Bar Association (HNBA)

Cristóbal Joshua Alex

is cochair of HNBA's civil rights section

It has happened again.

In early December, less than a month after seven teenagers brutally attacked and killed Marcelo Lucero in Patchogue, N.Y., a group of three assailants beat Jose Sucuzhañay in Brooklyn while shouting anti-Latino and antigay epithets. Three days later, Sucuzhañay, a real estate entrepreneur, became the latest Hispanic to die at the hands of attackers motivated by anti-immigrant bias and hatred.

According to a recent FBI report on hate crimes, there has been a 40 percent surge in anti-Latino violence since 2003. Organizations that track hate crimes paint an even grimmer picture. The Southern Poverty Law Center is now tracking 888 organizations that it classifies as hate groups - including the Federation for American Immigration Reform - a rise of almost 50 percent since 2000.

Why is this happening?

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) reports that white supremacists and other extremist groups are using the immigration debate to increase their membership and incite violence against Latinos. As the ADL has noted, "the demonization of immigrants has . . . created a toxic environment in which hateful rhetoric targeting immigrants has become routine." As was the case in the death of Lucero and Sucuzhañay, that rhetoric enables those so inclined to declare open season against Hispanics.

Perhaps the starkest example of the link between policy debate and anti-Latino incidents is that of Suffolk County, where Lucero was lynched. The county executive, Steve Levy, is vocally anti-immigrant. He has appeared on Lou Dobbs to spread his message and, after Lucero's death, complained that the killing would be a "one-day story" had it happened elsewhere.

Sadly, these incidents are happening elsewhere, including Schuylkill County in Pennsylvania.

In July, Luis Eduardo Ramirez Zavala was attacked and killed by teens in Shenandoah. After the deadly attack, one of the perpetrators reportedly warned: "You tell your [expletive] Mexican friends to get the [expletive] out of Shenandoah . . ."

Other parts of the country are seeing a rise in violence as well.

In 2006, a Latino teenager was beaten and sodomized in Spring, Texas. One of his assailants was a skinhead etched with Nazi tattoos who had perpetrated at least one other attack against a Latino. That same year, Serafin Negrete, a 32-year-old Mexican immigrant, was killed in Prince William County, Va., by local teenagers engaged in "amigo shopping" - their term for attacks and robberies targeting Latinos.

These attacks have occurred in environments where the immigration debate is heated.

Shenandoah, where Ramirez was killed, is only minutes away from Hazleton, Pa., now infamous for its anti-immigrant ordinances. Prince William County has also adopted local anti-immigrant laws and enforcement policies. And the immigration debate rages daily in border states such as Texas.

Our national leaders' failure to enact immigration reform has left a vacuum that many states and municipalities seek to fill by introducing anti-immigrant ordinances that create tensions between Latinos and their neighbors. In Pennsylvania alone, there have been at least 18 proposals for anti-immigrant state laws, as well as for numerous municipal ordinances.

We predict that violence against Latinos will continue to escalate and more lives will be lost unless Congress addresses our broken immigration policy. We realize that there are many serious challenges competing for our leaders' attention. But we cannot continue to put immigration reform on the back burner while immigrants and citizens who look like immigrants are attacked and families are torn apart.

As President Obama has said, "If the people cannot trust their government to do the job for which it exists - to protect them and to promote their common welfare - all else is lost." As the incidents of hate crimes increase, many Latinos are losing trust in our government's willingness and ability to protect us.

Ours is a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants. As our country navigates this time of crisis, neither our government nor the citizenry can stand by and allow those who rely on fear mongering to control the debate. Let's honor the best of our traditions and stand up for victims like Sucuzhañay, Lucero and Ramirez by recognizing that fair and sensible immigration reform is essential to both the security of our borders and the general welfare of the people.