December 3, 2025
Like so many across the country, we were shaken by the horrific shooting in Washington, D.C. last week that left one National Guard service member dead and another critically injured. Stop AAPI Hate denounces the attack and extends our deepest condolences to their families and all affected. Violence of any kind is unacceptable and must be condemned. But the Trump administration’s sweeping response – a racist and unlawful assault on immigrants – must also be rejected with force.
In the week since this act of violence, the administration has unleashed a torrent of xenophobic policies and racist rhetoric. These are not actions that will keep us safe. In reality, the administration’s unhinged response is racial scapegoating and collective punishment on a massive scale – and it is unlawful. Instead of leading with facts and seeking to deescalate, Trump has seized this tragedy as political cover to fuel hate and push through some of the most extreme anti-immigrant policies in modern U.S. history.
The Trump administration first reacted to the shooting by attacking Afghans, asylees, and refugees specifically. But they’ve quickly widened the net to target more and more immigrants of various statuses in what appears to be a calculated expansion of his xenophobic agenda.
Just days after the shooting, his administration froze all asylum cases – an unprecedented act that puts countless vulnerable immigrants in danger. This freeze is on top of Trump’s order last month to launch a sweeping review of all refugees admitted under the previous administration – a devastating move that jeopardizes the safety of tens of thousands of Asian refugees who have already settled in the U.S. These policies acutely harm Asian communities, as Asians make up the largest group of people granted asylum and refugee status – a combined total of nearly 30,000 people each year. Trump’s attacks on asylum seekers and refugees are a direct attack on Asians.
The administration also abruptly banned all Afghan passport holders from getting visas to enter the U.S. and shut down nearly all immigration pathways for Afghans, including green cards, work permits, family reunifications, and even naturalization.
And after threatening to expand his racist travel ban from June – which targets only non-European nations where people of color are the majority – he announced today a full stop to all types of immigration applications for anyone from the 19 nations on that list, including several Asian countries like Afghanistan and Myanmar. This includes people who are already lawfully in the U.S. waiting for green cards or citizenship status. And even those who already have green cards are not safe – Trump says they will all be “reviewed.”
These policies put thousands of Asian, African, Middle Eastern, and Latin American people at high risk of unjust surveillance, arbitrary denial or loss of legal status, and unlawful deportation – even if they’ve called America home for decades. They are racist attacks disguised as national security measures.
We know racial scapegoating is a tool authoritarians have long used to divide the people, take away freedoms, consolidate power, and remake their country to serve only the powerful few. The administration’s deeply racist rhetoric over the past week only further confirms that their new policies are all part of a larger, calculated plan to make America a place that’s permanently hostile to people of color — a nation where only the white and wealthy win. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem just demanded a “full travel ban,” falsely implying that immigrants of color are “killers,” “leeches,” and “junkies.” And Trump proposed “remigration,” a concept from Europe’s white nationalist movements that advocates for ethnic cleansing through mass deportation.
This is nothing new. Trump has spent years dehumanizing immigrants of color and normalizing white supremacist narratives about who belongs in this country. Today, the stakes remain high for all of America, including Asian communities. His administration continues to racially profile Asian international students, deport immigrants of color to random countries they have no ties to, separate families without due process, and traumatize workers in ICE operations like the Hyundai factory raid. All the while, we know from our data and research that the administration’s xenophobia is stoking hate acts and racial profiling against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders more broadly.
At every turn, immigrants and people of color are framed as dangerous because Trump and his far-right loyalists need to create an “enemy” to distract the American people – someone for us to blame, to fear, to sacrifice in service of their white nationalist vision of America.
We must not let them. We must loudly reject their attempt to turn a tragedy at the hands of one person into a justification to strip away the rights and dignity of millions. Stop AAPI Hate urges elected officials, civil society, and everyday people to push back against their xenophobic policies and racist narratives – and to act in solidarity with all communities being targeted by Trump and his allies.
