Anti-South Asian ‘hate speech’ has exploded online in US, report finds

Researchers link the rise to immigration politics, economic anxiety and the growing visibility of South Asians in US.

The monthly volume of hate towards South Asians in the US on the social media platform X rose 240 percent between January 2024 and June 2026, according to a new report [File: Jenny Kane/AP Photo]

Hate speech against Indians, Bangladeshis and Pakistanis in the United States has risen sharply online, according to a report that traces the surge to US President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and rhetoric, economic anxiety, and the South Asian community’s growing visibility in US life.

The report , titled “The Rising Tide of Anti-South Asian Hate in the United States”, by the Center for the Study of Organized Hate (CSOH), published on Sunday, found that the monthly volume of hate towards South Asians in the US on the social media platform X rose 240 percent between January 2024 and June 2026, from 12,904 posts to 43,843.

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Researchers identified more than 542,000 hateful posts on the platform between January 2025 and June 2026 alone towards people from South Asia living in the US, with five of the six highest-volume months falling at the end of that period.

The researchers used the United Nations definition of hate speech. They tracked recurring anti-South Asian slurs and narratives online, reviewing posts to exclude criticism that did not meet the UN threshold.

They found that nearly half of the hate posts on X accused South Asians of invading the US, stealing jobs or threatening the country demographically, while the derogatory slur “pajeet” and its variants showed up in 30 percent of hateful posts on X and 45 percent on fringe platforms.

Posts depicting South Asians as dirty or unhygienic grew by 171 percent on X, “the fastest of all narratives”.

The hate frequently collapsed South Asian ethnic and religious groups into one, with Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis conflated with one another, and Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and Christians also treated as a monolith.

Racism against Indians, Bangladeshis and Pakistanis has a long history in the US, but researchers argue the current surge reflects a confluence of longstanding prejudices and new political and economic pressures.

The report points to the H-1B visa programme, which allows US employers to hire skilled foreign workers, as a major flashpoint. Indians account for more than 70 percent of H-1B visa holders, and researchers linked several spikes in anti-South Asian hate to political fights over the programme, such as when Trump imposed a $100,000 payment requirement on certain new H-1B petitions in September 2025.

“Such actions serve a powerful symbolic function, in the bargain reinforcing the hostility of Trump’s base toward South Asians,” said the report.

The report makes the same argument about the administration’s rhetoric, highlighting Trump’s speech at an AI summit in July 2025, in which he criticised US technology companies for outsourcing jobs to India, after which researchers saw a sharp spike in anti-South Asian rhetoric online.

As more recent examples, the report points to a since-deleted September 2026 Department of Homeland Security post titled “Transformers: Age of Deportations”, featuring a Sikh man identified as “Mr Singh” and telling him to “get off our roads”.

Days later, the Department of Education posted “Make College Football Great Again”, after Texas Republican Bo French had complained about the presence of South Asians at a University of Texas football game.

The report argues that such rhetoric reinforces the idea of South Asians as outsiders who “can never truly belong in the country”.

From ‘model minority’ to job thieves

Economic resentment is another factor, researchers wrote, with the success of some South Asians increasingly being weaponised against them.

Indian Americans once stereotyped as a “model minority” are now portrayed as “opportunists and cheats”, and South Asians are used more broadly as a scapegoat for anger over jobs and the economy.

This comes as South Asians have become increasingly visible in US politics, from former Vice President Kamala Harris and New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani to Vice President JD Vance’s wife, Usha Vance, and politician Vivek Ramaswamy. The report documents racist attacks against figures across party lines and highlights how, for example, Mamdani’s primary and mayoral victories triggered spikes in anti-South Asian and Islamophobic abuse.

Researchers say both trends are now also tied up with “anxieties on the part of the majority about loss of status”, and feed the “Great Replacement Theory”, a conspiracy about the white population in Western countries being replaced by an orchestrated takeover.

The role of social media and AI

Social media has also turned those narratives into targeted harassment.

Researchers found X accounts doxxing South Asians accused of taking jobs or committing visa fraud, while influencers have confronted people at their homes and workplaces and posted the encounters online. Doxxing refers to exposing a person’s private details, such as their home address, online.

In one example, right-wing influencer Sara Gonzalez posted a video to more than half a million followers in which the report says she harassed a South Asian person she accused of exploiting the H-1B programme.

Meanwhile, generative AI has made that content even easier to produce, researchers say, depicting South Asians as “filthy and unclean, sexually predatory, culturally backward, or a demographic threat”.

While the report tracks hate largely through what is happening online, researchers write that online hate “does not exist in isolation from offline forms of hostility”. It cites a July incident in which an Indian Muslim mall employee in Utah was repeatedly stabbed in an attack that federal prosecutors charged as a hate crime. In September, a Sikh truck driver was stabbed 17 times at a Wyoming truck stop.

“Online and offline hate can reinforce one another”, the researchers wrote, “as narratives, stereotypes, and forms of demonization move between digital platforms, political discourse, media, and everyday life”.

研究人员将这一现象的出现与移民政策、经济焦虑以及南亚裔在美国日益增长的可见度联系起来。

根据一份最新报告，2024 年 1 月至 2026 年 6 月期间，美国社交媒体平台 X 上针对南亚裔人士的仇恨言论每月数量增长了 240%。[图片：Jenny Kane/AP Photo]

一份报告指出，针对美国印度人、孟加拉国人和巴基斯坦人的仇恨言论在网上急剧增加，该报告将这一激增归因于美国总统唐纳德·特朗普的移民打压和言论、经济焦虑以及南亚社区在美国生活中日益增长的可见度。

这份由有组织仇恨研究中心 (CSOH) 于周日发布的题为《美国反南亚裔仇恨的浪潮》的报告发现，2024 年 1 月至 2026 年 6 月期间，美国社交媒体平台 X 上针对南亚裔的仇恨言论每月数量增长了 240%，从 12,904 条帖子增至 43,843 条。

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研究人员发现，仅在 2025 年 1 月至 2026 年 6 月期间，该平台上就出现了超过 542,000 条针对居住在美国的南亚裔人士的仇恨帖子，其中六个数量最多的月份中有五个都出现在该时期的末尾。

研究人员采用了联合国对仇恨言论的定义。他们追踪了网络上反复出现的反南亚侮辱性言论和论述，并审查了相关帖子，以排除不符合联合国标准的批评内容。

他们发现，X 平台上近一半的仇恨帖子指责南亚裔入侵美国、抢走工作或在人口结构上威胁美国，而贬义词“pajeet”及其变体在 X 平台上 30% 的仇恨帖子和边缘平台上 45% 的仇恨帖子中出现。

在 X 上，将南亚人描绘成肮脏或不讲卫生的帖子增长了 171%，是“所有叙事中增长最快的”。

这种仇恨经常将南亚的民族和宗教群体混为一谈，将印度人、巴基斯坦人和孟加拉人混为一谈，并将印度教徒、穆斯林、锡克教徒和基督徒视为铁板一块。

在美国，针对印度人、孟加拉国人和巴基斯坦人的种族主义由来已久，但研究人员认为，目前的种族主义激增反映了长期存在的偏见与新的政治和经济压力的交汇。

报告指出，允许美国雇主雇用技术娴熟的外国工人的H-1B签证项目是引发冲突的主要导火索。印度裔占H-1B签证持有者的70%以上，研究人员发现，反南亚裔仇恨事件的几次激增与围绕该项目的政治斗争有关，例如特朗普在2025年9月对某些新的H-1B申请强制要求缴纳10万美元的费用。

报告称：“此类行动具有强大的象征意义，同时也加剧了特朗普支持者对南亚裔的敌意。”

该报告对政府的言论提出了同样的论点，重点提及特朗普在 2025 年 7 月人工智能峰会上的讲话，他在讲话中批评美国科技公司将工作外包给印度，此后研究人员发现网上反南亚言论急剧增加。

报告指出，最近的例子包括国土安全部于 2026 年 9 月发布的一篇题为“变形金刚：驱逐时代”的帖子（现已删除），帖子中一名锡克教男子被称作“辛格先生”，并被告知“滚出我们的道路”。

几天后，在德克萨斯州共和党人博·弗伦奇抱怨南亚裔人士出现在德克萨斯大学的一场橄榄球比赛中之后，教育部发布了“让大学橄榄球再次伟大”的标语。

该报告认为，这种言论强化了南亚裔人士作为外来者的观念，认为他们“永远无法真正融入这个国家”。

从“模范少数族裔”到工作窃贼

研究人员写道，经济上的不满是另一个因素，一些南亚人的成功越来越多地被用来对付他们。

印度裔美国人曾经被刻板印象地称为“模范少数族裔”，现在却被描绘成“投机分子和骗子”，而南亚裔则被更广泛地用作替罪羊，以发泄对就业和经济的愤怒。

随着南亚裔人士在美国政坛的影响力日益增强，从前副总统卡马拉·哈里斯、纽约市长佐兰·马姆达尼到副总统JD·万斯的妻子乌莎·万斯以及政治家维韦克·拉马斯瓦米，都可见一斑。这份报告记录了针对不同党派人士的种族主义攻击，并着重指出，例如，马姆达尼在初选和市长选举中的胜利，引发了反南亚裔和仇视伊斯兰教的言论激增。

研究人员表示，这两种趋势现在也与“大多数人对地位丧失的焦虑”有关，并助长了“大替换理论”，这是一种阴谋论，认为西方国家的白人人口将被有组织的接管所取代。

社交媒体和人工智能的作用

社交媒体也把这些言论变成了有针对性的骚扰。

研究人员发现，一些名为“X”的账号会公开南亚裔人士的个人信息，指控他们抢夺工作或进行签证欺诈；同时，一些网红也会到受害者家中或工作场所当面质问，并将过程发布到网上。所谓“人肉搜索”，指的是在网上曝光个人隐私信息，例如家庭住址。

例如，右翼网红萨拉·冈萨雷斯向超过 50 万粉丝发布了一段视频，报道称她在视频中骚扰了一名南亚裔人士，并指责其滥用 H-1B 签证计划。

与此同时，研究人员表示，生成式人工智能使得这类内容的制作变得更加容易，将南亚人描绘成“肮脏不洁、性侵犯、文化落后或人口威胁”。

虽然该报告主要通过网络事件追踪仇恨行为，但研究人员指出，网络仇恨“并非孤立存在，线下也存在敌意”。报告援引了7月份发生在犹他州的一起事件：一名印度裔穆斯林商场员工遭到多次刺伤，联邦检察官已将此案定性为仇恨犯罪。9月份，一名锡克教卡车司机在怀俄明州的一个卡车休息站被刺17刀。

研究人员写道：“网络和线下的仇恨会相互加强，因为叙事、刻板印象和妖魔化形式会在数字平台、政治话语、媒体和日常生活之间传播。”