The shooting on Saturday, August 3 in the American city of El Paso, where 20 people were shot, "at this point has the aspects of a hate crime," according to the police chief of the city, Greg Allen. The motives of the shooter, a white man of 21, are not yet known but the authorities have got their hands on "a manifesto" denouncing including "a Hispanic invasion of Texas," possibly written by the young man.

The supermarket where the killing took place is popular with the Hispanic community, mostly present in this city on the border with Mexico. The author of the statement also claims to be inspired by the March 2019 attack in Christchurch, New Zealand, where a white supremacist shot dead 51 people in two mosques. The latter had put forward the risk, according to him, of a "great replacement" of white Europeans by immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa.

"If it turns out the manifest is linked to the gunman, the El Paso slaughter potentially highlights the global spread of the ideology of white supremacy in the era of social media, and at a time when the immigration to the United States has become a subject of political discord, "writes the New York Times.

"Risk of extremist violence"

Hate crimes, including assaults and vandalism, have been on the rise in the United States since 2015. A report by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, based at the University of Santa Barbara, California, published on July 30, indicates a 9% increase in these crimes in 2018 in the 30 major cities of the country, with 2,009 victims. The trend is also up for the first months of 2019.

According to the report, the most targeted groups are African-Americans, Jews, gays and, to a lesser extent, members of the Hispanic community. Moreover, while the number of homicides of "extremist" origin has decreased from 36 in 2017 to 22 in 2018, they are increasingly the result of "white supremacists". The tragic latest example being the Pittsburgh Synagogue Massacre in October 2018, when a man shot and killed eleven people.

Researchers warn of "the risk of extremist violence [of white nationalists] that may endure during this political period," referring to the upcoming campaigns for the November 2020 presidential election, which will inevitably be accompanied by rhetoric that may stir up hate.

The Center on Anti-Defamation League (ADL) Extremism, which aims to denounce anti-Semitism, hatred and extremism, indicates that 54% of extremist-related killings over the last decade are made of white supremacists. The NGO claims that the white supremacist demonstration in Charlottesville in August 2017, when an anti-racist activist was killed by a neo-Nazi sympathizer, marked a point of "resurgence of white supremacy in the United States."

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"Trump effect"

In an essay published by the Social Science Research Network (SSRN), two US researchers go so far as to point to the responsibility of Donald Trump's mandate, often criticized for his anti-migrant rhetoric and his sometimes racist outbursts, in the US. increase in hate crimes.

Although the latter never called for any form of direct violence, they analyze the phenomenon described by the media as "Trump effect": "The election of Donald Trump in November 2016 was associated with a statistically significant increase the number of hate crimes reported in the United States, even with other explanations, and the counties that overwhelmingly voted for President Trump during the presidential election also experienced the largest increase declared hate crimes, "say the authors.

The US president was criticized after the Charlottesville incident, when he claimed that the responsibility for the violence must be sought "from both sides", thus putting back the members of the right supremacist and anti-racist activists.

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The ADL reports that right-wing white supremacists, many of whom have supported the billionaire's candidacy, have "interpreted Trump's success at the polls as a success for their own movement," and have moved on since 2016. "from online activism to the real world". The perpetrator of the killing in Christchurch had presented the American president as a "symbol of renewed white identity".

For the Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke, the killings in El Paso, where he is from, is linked to the anti-immigration rhetoric of Donald Trump, who called during his campaign the Mexican migrants of "Rapists" and "criminals". "It is racist and fuels racism in this country, which fundamentally changes the character of this country and leads to violence."

He did not react to the attack but lamented in a tweet a "tragic shooting" and an "act of cowardice", saying that "there is no reason or excuse that will ever justify killing. the innocent".