The Center for the Study of Organized Hate (CSOH) released a 12‑page study on Sunday that charts a 240% surge in anti‑South Asian hate posts on X between January 2024 and June 2026, climbing from 12,904 to 43,843 messages. The report also tallied more than 542,000 hateful posts targeting South Asians on the platform during the same period, with five of the six highest‑volume months falling in the last six months of the study.
The spike aligns closely with the H‑1B visa debate, which the CSOH notes sees 70% of visa holders as Indian. Researchers point to a series of political actions—Trump’s 2025 $100,000 fee for certain H‑1B petitions and his July 2025 AI‑summit remarks that blamed India for outsourcing jobs—as catalysts that have amplified hostility. About half of the posts accused South Asians of job theft or demographic threat, while 30% of the content used the slur “pajeet”.
The research also documents a shift in the narrative surrounding Indian Americans, from the long‑standing model‑minority stereotype to accusations of opportunism and cheating. This change dovetails with the rise of the Great Replacement theory, wherein a minority of white voters believe that white populations are being deliberately displaced. The CSOH report cites the rapid growth of posts depicting South Asians as dirty or unhygienic— a 171% increase on X— as the fastest‑growing hate narrative in the study.
Online hate has spilled into the real world, with X accounts publishing personal data about South Asians, targeting them for job fraud allegations, and confronting them in public spaces. Generative‑AI content has amplified these attacks, producing fabricated footage that portrays South Asians as unclean or predatory. The surge has prompted a federal review of hate‑speech enforcement on major social‑media platforms, with policymakers expected to set new moderation guidelines by mid‑2027.