NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Many call the Council of Conservative Citizens nothing short of a hate group, and there are questions as to why Davidson County Sheriff Daron Hall didn't know better.

Video: Davidson Co. Sheriff Spoke To White Advocacy Group

"I think the implication is that it's open season in Davidson County on Hispanic immigrants," said immigration attorney Elliott Ozment.

Ozment isn't holding his tongue after learning that on Nov. 22, Hall went to a restaurant to speak to the Council of Conservative Citizens -- a group known for radical views.

The group's Web site said: "We also oppose all efforts to mix the races of mankind, to promote non-white races over the European American people through so-called 'affirmative action.'"

"I'm shocked that the sheriff of this county would be having a discourse with a radical, racist group," Ozment said.

But in a phone interview Friday, Hall said when he was booked to speak, that was never brought up.

"All I knew was the name of the organization," he said.

The sheriff, a Democrat, said he often talks to groups on both sides of the aisle about his immigration program and believed the Council of Conservative Citizens to be Republicans but said he never bothered to check.

Ozment, who said he was dismissed from Hall's immigration council after publicly criticizing him, said that is questionable.

"If it is true, then I can say it's gross negligence on the part of that sheriff to walk into a group and discuss something as controversial as the 287(g) program without knowing something about the group that he was talking to," said Ozment.

It's something the sheriff said will change.

"They can say, well, I should have looked into the group, and that's fair, but for those who think I knew where I was going and I wanted to be in that audience, they're just wrong," said Hall.

The sheriff said in the future, he will vet the groups he's speaking to.

Had he Googled this group's name, Hall would have stumbled upon 44,000 returns, some of which call the group a white supremacist organization.

Even under the group's Web site, without clicking on it, its own words describe it as advocating against minorities and racial integration.

The Council of Conservative Citizens is based in St. Louis, Mo.

It said it is not a white supremacist group but a white advocacy group, and that it isn't a violent or hate-based group.