Hundreds of hate groups based in the United States have been revealed on a new map, showing how racist and radical groups are still largely found in the South, UK MailOnline reported.
However, the twist lies in the fact that the number of groups have multiplied dramatically since President Obama took office.
The Southern Poverty Law Center has released a "hate map" last week which shows the national distribution of the various groups that they could confirm.
In 2013, the last full year with available data, the overall number of groups actually dropped to 939 from 1,007 in 2012. But one of their more troubling observations is that some of the far-right leaning groups have had their ideologies picked up by conservative Republican politicians, according to UK MailOnline.
"The idea that the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security, among others, is being plugged by U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.). Last November, U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) suggested the president was using the Affordable Care Act as cover to set up a 'secret security force,'" the report stated.
"Earlier in 2013, U.S. Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Texas), echoing many Patriot groups, falsely claimed that a proposed United Nations arms treaty 'set the stage for [gun] confiscation on a global scale.'"
In the wake of Sandy Hook and the upcoming immigration reform, the SPLC, which focuses much of its work combating racist groups, said that the lack of clear legislative victories for the Obama administration on gun control appear to have effectively calmed some of the far-right groups.
"Those factors, along with the collapse or near-collapse of several major groups for a variety of reasons, seem to have taken some of the wind out of the sails of the radical right, leaving the movement both weaker and somewhat smaller," the report states.
According to UK MailOnline, many states have varying bands of hate groups, but for their map, the SPLC qualified them into eight categories: black separatist, neo-confederate, Christian identity, racist skinhead, white nationalist, neo-Nazi, Ku Klux Klan and general hate.
Although Hawaii is the only state that has no known hate group, a vast majority of the rest can be found below the Mason Dixon line.
The 11 states that make up the area between Texas and the Atlantic are home to 589 of the 939 active groups that the SPLC identified- a whopping nearly 63 percent.
Though Florida hosts 58 groups and Texas has 57, they do not take the top slot this year, UK MailOnline reported.
Given the large immigrant population in California and the fact that unlike the South, it does not have a history of slavery, California still made the top of the list.
The California-based American Freedom Party, originally founded by racist skinheads group in Southern California, is one of the top two groups that the SPLC have flagged up as particularly threatening.
They have stepped up their rhetoric against immigrants and in support of "the interests of white Americans."
"They have for years, been running in political elections and haven't done all that well. They have however, recently gathered the top influential white supremacists to run their board and are becoming more aggressive about winning elections," the report's author Mark Potok told Business Insider.
