Ku Klux Klan Attempting To Recruit Using Immigration Crisis As Platform

The United States has an immigration crisis on its hands and the Ku Klux Klan in South Carolina is using catastrophe as a platform for recruiting. According to media reports, the KKK recruitment strategy during the illegal immigration crisis is to leave bags of candy on driveways with a note to "Save our land, join the Klan." The note provides residents of northwestern South Carolina with a phone number to the Klan Hotline — an automated message about how the hate group is battling illegal immigration.

"Be a man, join the Klan! Illegal immigration is destroying America," says the hotline's automated message, reports FOX Carolina. "Always remember: if it ain't white, it ain't right. White power."

For many residents in Seneca region of South Carolina, finding the KKK recruitment candy and note was a surprise since many are not aware that the group is still active. Despite the fact that the KKK is still operating, their influence is minimal and their follower count is dwindling. Take, for instance, the fact that the 221 active KKK chapters in 2010 dropped to 163 active chapters in 2013.

But that's not to say the KKK is not trying to recruit. Robert Jones, the self-proclaimed imperial klaliff of the Loyal White Knights, told WHNS-TV that leaving candy on the driveway was a recruitment tactic for their national night ride, which takes place three times a year. He also claimed that his group, which has over 8,500 members, is a civil right organization following the Bible, instead of being a hate group, receiving over 20,000 phone calls of interested members. Jones further insists that during their efforts to protest illegal immigration, homes are not targeted.

"I mean, we can't tell who lives in a house, whether they're black, white, Mexican, gay, we can't tell that," said Jones to WHNS-TV. "And if you were to look at somebody's house like that, that means you'd be pretty much a racist."

For the residents of Senaca, the recruitment tactics of the KKK are disturbing and unsettling.

"[I] talked to several neighbors. They were very angry, very upset, very ashamed at the same time - that this exists," said a woman to WHNS-TV, anonymously. "Ashamed to face our neighbors that do not have the same color skin that we do. You shouldn't have to wake up and fear that somebody might burn a cross in your yard or throw something like this out in your driveway with nothing but hurt in their intention."

The efforts of the KKK will not just stop with their recruitment tactics on their night ride, as they have an upcoming rally on July 25 - 27. Many groups have combined forces to organize a Unity Rally Against Hatred in Greenville on Saturday, July 26 in response to the upcoming KKK rally, according to the event's Facebook page.

Using the topic of immigration as a platform is nothing new for the KKK, as they have been exploiting the debate to get new members for more than a decade.

"It's pure opportunism," said Mark Pallok, Senior Fellow of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), to Fox News Latino. "They spun it as a racial issue. The groups were fairly successful and they did grow based on their exploitation of illegal immigration."