A rash of violent hate crimes in the New York area has put Latino immigrants and their advocates on edge.

It’s a worrying trend, advocates say, considering less than a year has passed since the separate hate killings of two Ecuadorean immigrant men in Brooklyn and Long Island late last year.

“We’re facing down a wave of hate right now,” says Juan Cáceres, of the Centro de la Comunidad Mexicana, or Mexican Community Center in Manhattan. “There are people out there that will seize on any cheap excuse to attack immigrants.”

Cáceres was referring to at least five separate attacks late last month in the Bronx, in which Mexican men were chased down and beaten by groups of attackers who screamed racial epithets. In one case a Mexican man was stabbed but survived his injuries.

Meanwhile, in Patchogue, Long Island, on Aug. 14, an Ecuadorean immigrant was beaten by two teens, who were arrested and charged with a hate crime. In nearby Smithtown, two weeks later, a man attempted to run over two women in Muslim dress with his car, after screaming anti-Muslim epithets at them.

These attacks made it clear Patchogue and surrounding Suffolk County (which occupies the eastern third of Long Island) are still struggling to overcome widespread anti-immigrant sentiment.

Patchogue is the same small seaside town in which 37-year-old Ecuadorean immigrant Marcelo Lucero was stabbed to death by a gang of teenaged attackers Nov. 8 last year.

Suffolk County has festered with “nativist intolerance and hate violence” for years, according to the Montgomery, Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center.

Only a week after the latest Suffolk hate crime, the center released a 29-page report on Latino immigrants in Suffolk County titled “Climate of Fear.”

The report documents over 30 separate violent attacks on Latino immigrants in Suffolk since 1999, including incidents in which they were spit upon, beaten with baseball bats, shot at with pellet guns, or had their homes set afire with firecrackers.

“There’s a large number of hate crimes occurring out there and only a tiny percentage are making it to prosecution,” said Mark Potok, editor of the report.

Potok also said Suffolk police have not done a proper job of encouraging victims or witnesses of hate crimes to come forward, or promising to keep immigration status out of it.

The report also accuses local politicians of contributing to the toxic atmosphere for immigrants in Suffolk.

At a well-attended press conference last week at a Suffolk County government building, Potok labeled County Executive Steve Levy “enabler in chief” of the area’s immigrant-bashing culture. The sound byte was repeated in much of New York’s major media.

Levy, a Democrat and Suffolk’s top elected official, has championed several crackdowns on illegal immigrants and has a penchant for making offhand remarks that offend the Latino community.

In 2006, Levy said women were crossing the border from Mexico into the United States to drop “anchor babies” (U.S. citizen children) free of charge, according to the report. Later, when Lucero was killed, Levy complained that if it had happened elsewhere, it would have been a “one-day story.”

After immigrant advocates accused him of trivializing an innocent man’s needless death, Levy apologized. But later he flippantly referred to the scrutiny he received after Lucero’s murder as comparable to a colonoscopy.

More recently, in July, Levy joked about deporting kitchen workers at a venue where he made an appearance.

For the Southern Poverty Law Center, the years of derogatory remarks made by Levy and other Suffolk County officials help set the stage for bias attacks.

Hate criminals typically believe “they are carrying out the wishes of their community,” said Potok, “they don’t think they’re thuggish. So when politicians make those statements, they’re aiding and abetting.”

In an e-mail message, Levy told New America Media the Southern Poverty Law Center failed to interview anyone from his office, the county police, or the district attorney before compiling their report.

Levy pointed out it’s Suffolk County Police policy that victims and witnesses of crimes are not asked their immigration status. He also touted his administration’s new “tolerance and acceptance” campaign, which will be fashioned into TV ads and lesson plans for Suffolk schools.

Long Islanders denounce “all acts of crime and violence against all persons,” he said.

In New York City, activists also have begun to press local politicians with regards to hate crimes.

Cáceres, of the Mexican Community Center in New York City, says he has met with Bronx Borough President Rubén Diaz Jr. and State Assembly member Naomi Rivera to communicate Mexicans’ fear of venturing out into Bronx streets.

The Diario de México USA newspaper carried a front page story this week with a large headline: “On Alert in NY Due to Racial Attacks.”

Cáceres says the physical attacks are only the tip of the iceberg, and Mexican pedestrians and shop owners are constantly harassed.

Of course, in New York City it’s almost unheard of for elected officials to bash immigrants. Instead, Cáceres blames the anti-immigrant climate on the bad economy and the constant scapegoating of immigrants by national media figures, such as Lou Dobbs of CNN.

The New York Police Department’s Hate Crimes Task Force offered a $2,000 for information leading to the Bronx attackers’ arrest.