HERNDON, Va. -- Protesters gathered at a Herndon hotel Saturday morning to protest a controversial group that advocates racial separation.

The American Renaissance, classified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group, is holding its biannual conference at the Crowne Plaza in Herndon this weekend.

About 50 demonstrators took part in the rally, with emotions running high. Herndon has been at the center of immigration issues over the last few years as some in the community opposed day laborer sites and illegal residents.

Police pushed back protestors as they tried to march into the hotel. Demonstrators called the conference a "white supremacist meeting."

One protester spit at an attendee, who said he's not a supremacist, but an advocate of the white race.

"They put themselves out there as mainstream and wear suits and ties but they promote the agenda of groups like Nazis," demonstrator Marco Del Fuego said.

Conference organizers said the protest won't impact their weekend schedule, and won't change their anti-immigration opinions, either.

Jared Taylor, editor of the American Renaissance publications, denies the "hate group" allegations.

"They accuse us of being Nazis, certainly they're acting like Nazis," he said.

He said he is a "race realist."

More than 200 people are attending the conference to hear speeches with predictions about immigration's impact on the U.S. and the world.

"It's unfair for Americans who grew up in an America that they know to find out they're now living in an outpost of Mexico, Haiti or Guatemala," Taylor said.

But Ricardo Cabellos, with the group El Pueblo Unido or "People United," said Herndon has already suffered from enough "xenophobic policy issues."

"Having this group there is a slap in the face to diversity," Cabellos said.