The advocacy group Hindu American Foundation (HAF) has also backed the resolution introduced on May 22, 2026 (US time).
Notably, the US bill submission gained traction among Asian Americans on social media around the same time as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s maiden trip to India this week. During his four-day visit, the top Donald Trump administration official was outrightly confronted over anti-Indian racism, as inflated by some in the far-right MAGA movement.
US Congress members attached to the bill against anti-Asian racism
According to the official text highlighted in the resolution submission made by Krishnamoorthi, the new bill is aimed at “Condemning racist rhetoric targeting Indian and Chinese Americans, reaffirming that immigrants from all backgrounds are vital to the United States, and calling on all elected officials to refrain from language that promotes racial or ethnic division.”
As stated in the resolution dated May 22, Krishnamoorthi submitted the bill for himself, other Indian-origin Congress members Pramila Jayapal, Ami Bera, Suhas Subramanyam, and Shri Thanedar, along with Chinese-origin officials Ted Lieu, Grace Meng, and Judy Chu.
Bill ‘H Res 1322′ underscores Indian-Americans’ contributions to US
Highlighting the contributions of foreign-origin immigrants to the US economy, security, culture, and prosperity, the bill cites economic research finding that Indian and Chinese immigrants and their descendants “contribute hundreds of billions of dollars to the Nation’s GDP through spending, support millions of jobs, and own hundreds of thousands of businesses, thereby strengthening the long-term fiscal outlook of the United States.”
Earlier this month, a record $20.5 billion in investments in the US by top Indian companies was celebrated at the 2026 SelectUSA Investment Summit. Since then, both the US Ambassador to India, Sergio Gor, and Rubio have confirmed that both democracies are advancing their goal to boost US-India bilateral trade to $500 billion by 2030.
On top of that, the past decade has also witnessed a sizeable increase in EB-5 visa applications from Indian nationals. This particular ‘Immigrant Investor’ visa program was created by the US Congress decades ago to stimulate the US economy through job creation and capital investment by foreign investors. As reported by EB5 BRICS, a US-based immigration and investment advisory firm empowering Indian investors to secure Green Cards through this visa program, 440 EB-5 visas were granted to Indian applicants through consular processing in the first half of FY2024.
These increasing numbers suggest that applicants pursuing this visa category are making “necessary investments” in a commercial enterprise in America and plan to create or preserve 10 permanent full-time jobs for qualified US workers, according to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) website.
New anti-racism bill cites troubling instances
Noting that both diaspora communities of Indian Americans and Chinese Americans share long histories in the US, with waves of immigrants dating back to the early 1900s and 1800s, respectively.
And so, it further asserted, “All communities in the United States, regardless of race, national origin, ethnicity, or religion, deserve to live freely without hateful rhetoric, hate crimes, and bigotry being targeted at them.”
However, the resolution’s formal text went on to cite several instances that indicated otherwise. The bill shed light on the alarming surge in anti-Asian and anti-South Asian rhetoric on social media. Krishnamoorthi’s bill underscored that the online usage of slurs against South Asians had risen approximately 75% between November 2024 and January 2025. These instances included documented increases in hate messages targeting Indian immigrants across platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and X.
Trump called out for amplifying ‘hellhole’ remarks about India, China
The official document even alluded to the “racism promoted” by US President Donald Trump. In a Truth Social post dated April 22, 2026, the MAGA leader boosted a post with derogatory terms targeting people from India and China, referring to both countries as a “hellhole.”
The problematic post alluded to excerpts from ‘The Savage Nation’ talk radio show, in which conservative commentator Michael Savage said, “A baby here becomes an instant citizen, and then they bring the entire family in from China or India or some other hellhole on the planet.”
Back in India, the Ministry of External Affairs sharply criticised the “inappropriate” remarks shared by Trump. Without naming the POTUS or the radio talk show host, the foreign ministry said that the remarks were “uninformed, inappropriate, and in poor taste.” The official statement further added, “They certainly do not reflect the reality of the India-US relationship, which has long been based on mutual respect and shared interests.”
In light of these troubling developments, Krishnamoorthi’s bill states, “The racism prompted by the President further described those aligned with protecting birthright citizenship as ‘gangsters with laptops,’ in the context of a broader attack that repeatedly singled out immigrants from India and China as abusing the system and ‘turn[ing] us into a colony of China… [and] also Indian,” thereby reinforcing a narrative that casts immigrants and their advocates, particularly those of Indian and Chinese origin, as organised, predatory actors under-mining the United States.”
Trump’s recent amplification of these derogatory statements adds to the diplomatic tussle between him and Prime Minister Narendra Modi over tariffs and India’s massive Russian oil purchases. Moreover, the POTUS’s repeated attempts at presenting himself as the self-proclaimed ‘peacemaker’ who brokered the ceasefire between India and Pakistan after last year’s April 22 Pahalgam attack and Delhi’s subsequent punitive campaign, Operation Sindoor, in May also created a rift between the US and India, as the latter firmly denied the role of any third-party mediation.
Despite the aforementioned tensions between the two countries, Trump and Modi have continued to speak at great lengths about sharing good ties and friendship with each other on official forums. Similarly, US State Secretary Marco Rubio emphasised this week that his four-day trip to India didn’t aim to “reset” any relations between the two nations, as they are already on good terms.
Marco Rubio addresses racist remarks targeting Indian Americans
When asked about the rise in racist remarks against Indian Americans in the US at a joint press conference with External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar in Delhi this week, a flabbergasted Rubio replied, “I’ll take that very seriously about the comments. I’m sure that there are people who have made comments online and in other places because every country in the world has stupid people.”
“I’m sure there are stupid people here; there are stupid people in the United States who make dumb comments all the time. The United States is a very welcoming country. Our nation has been enriched by people who come to our country from all over the world.”
Although Trump’s recent push for the “hellhole” remarks wasn’t directly referenced at the Delhi event, Rubio was again confronted about the same question the following day by an American journalist in India. “I didn’t even know what we were talking about,” the State Secretary blurted out.
“I assumed he’s talking about people posting stuff online,” Rubio said of the question raised by an Indian journalist the day before. “That’s why I told them specifically, ‘Can you tell me what you’re talking about and who you’re talking about?’ He didn’t have a specific answer.”
“The bottom line is that in the modern era, you go online, and there are people saying all kinds of crazy stuff online. I don’t even know if they’re real people or who they are, so…The President loves India,” Rubio went on, according to a video clip shared by US Network Pool via Reuters.
“The President is a big fan of India, a big fan of Prime Minister Modi. I wouldn’t be here if the President didn’t want me to be here. He wouldn’t have sent someone like Sergio to be our ambassador, someone who’s very close to the President…I mean, people say stupid stuff all the time on social media and in every country in the world, unfortunately.”
What does the new bill seek to achieve?
Through this newly introduced resolution, the Congress members involved aim to condemn the “racist language propagated by the President” against people of Indian and Chinese origin, and all forms of hate against communities across the US. It further affirms that immigrants, including people of Indian and Chinese descent, are “vital to the fabric of the United States.”
Additionally, the bill calls on all elected officials, including Trump, to refrain from using language that “promotes racial or ethnic division or stereotypes.” It also seeks to establish that attacks targeting someone’s national origin or ethnicity are essentially “un-American.”