Asian American Paranoia Fueled by ICE Tactics
By J. J. Ghosh | 26 Mar, 2026

As AAPI-targeted ICE arrests quadruple under Trump, polling shows that we’ve had enough.

There's a retired teacher in Dallas named Jessica who has lived in the United States for nearly 40 years. She's an American citizen who knows that she's not required by law to carry her passport.  But she does anyway.

"I am aware of news that some Americans were wrongly detained by ICE," she told China Daily. "That scares me. I now carry my passport in case some ICE agents decide to question me due to my look."

An elderly Hmong man was dragged from his home by ICE agents despite being a US citizen

Obviously there will always be alarmists who overreact on just about every issue — COVID, war, guns, etc.  But Jessica is not one of them.

Rather, she is simply one of many Asian Americans who feel this way right now. And for very good reason.

The Numbers

A new analysis by Stop AAPI Hate, using federal government data obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, has been able to quantify what many of us already suspected to be true: 

Our community is being targeted in record numbers.

From January 20 to mid-October 2025, ICE arrested 7,752 AAPI-ers, detained 7,243, and deported 2,776.

ICE agents raided a Los Angeles car wash

During the same period in 2024, under the Biden administration, ICE recorded just 1,998 arrests of the same demographic.  That's nearly a fourfold increase in less than a year.

Chinese nationals accounted for the largest share of arrests at 26%, followed by Indian nationals at 25%, Vietnamese nationals at 12%, and Laotian nationals at 4%.

When President Trump ran for office, he pledged that immigration enforcement would target violent criminals with records.  But few of those targeted from these communities come even close to fitting that description.

Rather, we're talking about engineers, small business owners, restaurant workers, and retirees — many of whom have lived here for decades.

Nearly half of ICE arrestees in early 2025 had prior criminal records, but by June that share had dropped to about one-third.

And if the arrests weren't bad enough on their own, they seem to be conducted in such a was as to maximize the humiliation of those targeted.

On the morning of June 3 ICE agents raided a Korean-owned car wash on Olympic Boulevard in Koreatown, Los Angeles.

In September ICE conducted the largest ever raid on a Hyundai plant in Georgia, arresting more than 300 Korean nationals who were here for work — straining relations between the United States and South Korea.

In November nearly four dozen people were arrested in immigration raids on Kauai, Hawaii.

In January a Hmong American man in St. Paul, Minnesota — a U.S. citizen with no criminal record — was detained and led outside in freezing temperatures wearing little clothing before being released.

Not Just Immigrants

It's bad enough that immigrants are being targeted, but the fear instilled by these arrests is not felt just by immigrants.  

Researchers found that concerns were reported at nearly identical rates among people born in the United States and those born abroad.

In a January 2026 national survey conducted with NORC at the University of Chicago — using the nation's largest, most representative public opinion panel of Asian and Pacific Islander communities, conducted in English, Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, and Korean — half of AAPI adults said they or someone in their community had been affected by anti-immigrant policies or sentiment in the past year.

36% of respondents said they or another AAPI person they know had their immigration or citizenship status questioned or feared it might be.

30% experienced or feared arrest, detention, or deportation.

28% have considered leaving the United States altogether.

26% said they or someone they know changed their social media presence.

24% became less civically or politically active.

23% avoided travel or public places.

If the goal here was to stop Asian Americans from being functioning members of society, it's working.

Public Sentiment

The enforcement data is damning enough on its own.  But a new AAPI Data/AP-NORC poll released just this week makes the political implications impossible to ignore.

About 6 in 10 AAPI adults say Trump has hurt immigration and border security "a lot" or "a little." In January, that number was 4 in 10.

About two-thirds say Trump has "gone too far" when it comes to deporting immigrants living in the U.S., and about 6 in 10 oppose large-scale immigration enforcement operations in neighborhoods with high immigrant populations.

About 7 in 10 oppose allowing immigration enforcement agents to cover their faces when arresting people.

Around 4 in 10 AAPI adults say deporting immigrants living in the U.S. illegally should be a low priority for the government — an increase from about one-third just after Trump took office. Only about 2 in 10 say it should be a high priority.

And the data here also shows that even among those who believe in border security, the current approach — the cruelty, the scale, the targeting of people with no criminal record, the detentions of U.S. citizens — has gone further than the AAPI community is willing to accept.

Protecting Each Other 

While there's little doubt that we're being unfairly targeted, it's important that we not fall into the trap of adopting a form of thinking along the lines of "other ethnicities are the ones that should be detained, not us."

And there is, fortunately, no evidence that that appears to be the case.

In fact, on the contrary, according to the survey, 67% of respondents said they feel motivated to support and protect immigrant communities.

Yes, our community is looking out for each other.  But "each other" does not necessarily mean Asian Americans alone.

We have faced enough adversity during dark periods in our history to by and large understand that this struggle extends to anyone treated unfairly — that nobody in this country should live their life in fear, especially those who have done literally nothing to cause harm to others.

Maybe those looking to harm us should be the ones carrying around a passport. They're welcome to find a place that shares their values. But our community is not one.