A new report finds that online hate speech directed at Indians, Bangladeshis and Pakistanis in the United States has risen sharply. The study attributes the surge to President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and rhetoric, heightened economic anxiety, and the growing visibility of the South Asian community in American public life.
The Center for the Study of Organized Hate (CSOH) released a report titled “The Rising Tide of Anti‑South Asian Hate in the United States” on Sunday. The study found that the monthly volume of anti‑South Asian hate posts on the social‑media platform X surged 240 percent between January 2024 and June 2026, climbing from 12,904 posts to 43,843.
Researchers documented more than 542,000 hateful posts on the platform between January 2025 and June 2026, directed at South Asian individuals residing in the United States. Five of the six months with the highest volume of such posts occurred during the latter part of that period.
The researchers applied the United Nations definition of hate speech in their study. They monitored recurring anti‑South Asian slurs and narratives across online platforms, reviewing posts and discarding any criticism that fell below the UN’s hate‑speech threshold.
They found that nearly half of the hate posts on X accused South Asians of invading the United States, stealing jobs or posing a demographic threat.
The derogatory slur “pajeet” and its variants appeared in roughly 30 % of hateful posts on X and about 45 % on fringe platforms.
Posts portraying South Asians as dirty or unhygienic increased by 171 percent on X, making it the fastest‑growing narrative among those monitored.
The hatred often collapsed South Asian ethnic and religious groups into a single category, conflating Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, and treating Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and Christians as a monolithic group.
Racism targeting individuals of Indian, Bangladeshi and Pakistani origin has a long‑standing history in the United States. Researchers contend that the present increase stems from a combination of entrenched biases and emerging political and economic pressures.
The report identifies the H‑1B visa programme, which permits U.S. employers to hire skilled foreign workers, as a major flashpoint. Indians account for more than 70 % of H‑1B visa holders.
Researchers have linked several spikes in anti‑South Asian hate to political fights over the programme, including the September 2025 decision by Trump to impose a $100,000 payment requirement on certain new H‑1B petitions.
The report stated that “such actions serve a powerful symbolic function, in the bargain reinforcing the hostility of Trump’s base toward South Asians.”
The report repeats its criticism of the administration’s rhetoric, citing President Donald Trump’s remarks at an artificial‑intelligence summit in July 2025, where he accused U.S. technology firms of outsourcing jobs to India. Researchers noted that, after the speech, online anti‑South‑Asian rhetoric rose sharply.
The report cites a September 2026 Department of Homeland Security post, now deleted, titled “Transformers: Age of Deportations.” The post featured a Sikh man identified as “Mr Singh” and included the directive “get off our roads.”
Days later, the U.S. Department of Education posted the slogan “Make College Football Great Again,” after Texas Republican Bo French lodged a complaint about the presence of South Asians at a University of Texas football game.
The report contends that the rhetoric reinforces the perception of South Asians as outsiders who “can never truly belong in the country.”
Researchers noted that economic resentment is another factor, observing that the success of some South Asians is increasingly being weaponised against them.
Indian Americans, once stereotyped as a “model minority,” are now being portrayed as “opportunists and cheats,” and South Asians more broadly are being used as a scapegoat for public anger over jobs and the economy.
South Asians are gaining prominence in U.S. politics, exemplified by former Vice President Kamala Harris, New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, Vice President‑candidate JD Vance’s spouse Usha Vance, and entrepreneur‑turned‑politician Vivek Ramaswamy. A new report records racist attacks targeting individuals across party lines and notes that Mamdani’s primary and mayoral victories were followed by sharp increases in anti‑South Asian and Islamophobic abuse.
Researchers say the two trends are now also linked to “anxieties on the part of the majority about loss of status” and they feed the “Great Replacement Theory”, a conspiracy that alleges the white population in Western countries is being replaced by an orchestrated takeover.
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 some influencers have confronted individuals at their homes and workplaces and posted the encounters online.
Doxxing is the exposure of a person’s private details, such as a home address, on the internet.
Right‑wing influencer Sara Gonzalez posted a video that reached more than half a million of her followers, in which she harassed a South Asian individual she alleged was exploiting the H‑1B programme.
Researchers say that generative AI has further facilitated the production of such content, which depicts South Asians as “filthy and unclean, sexually predatory, culturally backward, or a demographic threat.”
While the report tracks hate largely through online activity, researchers note that online hate does not exist in isolation from offline hostility. The report cites a July incident in which an Indian Muslim mall employee in Utah was repeatedly stabbed in an attack charged by federal prosecutors as a hate crime. Additionally, 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.”
Why it matters
The findings highlight how digital hostility and political rhetoric against South Asian immigrant communities can intersect with economic anxiety and manifest in broader public safety concerns.