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Which fact you select to put in the headline colors the tone of the whole piece. The truth is: the definition is not uniform, the reporting is not close to comprehensive, the overall numbers are so low that what amounts to statistical noise can be made to seem large
The first year these figures were collected nationally, headlines blared throughout the nation that "hate crimes are increasing"
The classifications are subjective and based on what the local beat cop decides to put on a report. The standards are drastically different from precinct to precinct. The figures are determined by department policy and investment.
The laws were put in place by politicians pandering to specific constituencies. The demand to add new protected categories is always increasing as a form of political pandering.
The actual number of hate crimes in America is surely some multiple of what is reported. It is a miniscule fraction of the overall crime in America. The year to year increase or decrease is essentially unknowable given the mechanisms we have to measure it.
The report that cobbles together an arbitary number of departments reporting based on an arbitrary set of criteria means nothing; the reporting that is done on it compounds that meaninglessness. The figures are then cherrypicked to maximize engagement through fear.
NYU Law Professor James Jacobs surveyed the absurdity of hate crime reporting back in the year 2000 and absolutely nothing has improved since then https://www.amazon.ca/Hate-Crimes-Criminal-Identity-Politics/dp/0195140540