By a vote of 94-1, the United States Senate passed a bill designed to fight hate crimes against Asians and Asian-Americans, prompted by an increase in such crimes since the spread of the coronavirus, CBS News reports. The one vote opposing passage came from Missouri Republican Josh Hawley.
The overwhelming bipartisan support (excluding Hawley) for the measure was a strong signal to the Asian-American/Pacific Islander (AAPI) community that the spate of attacks will be confronted by both local and federal law enforcement efforts, and makes the attackers subject to federal hate-crimes prosecutions. The bill also establishes an office within the Justice Department which will concentrate on hate crimes against the AAPI community.
AAPI peoples have been targets since early in the coronavirus pandemic as ignorant, typically Trump-supporting, individuals blames Asians in the US for spreading the coronavirus. Donald Trump himself stokes such animosity by referring to the coronavirus as “the China virus.”