COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I come to the floor to talk about the rise in hate crimes in the Pacific Northwest and to thank my colleague the Senator from Hawaii for her tremendous leadership in guiding us through this process to get this legislation passed in the U.S. Senate.

I want to thank her for her incredible work as a member of the Judiciary Committee and for getting this out and moved to the floor and to thank Senator Schumer and Senator McConnell for both helping us to get to this point today and our colleagues for passing this incredible legislation. But, again, thanks to Senator Hirono for knowing--knowing and understanding and being a great member of the Judiciary Committee-- that we needed to get this legislation done now.

Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have a long history in our country. And their contributions have been significant, both in cultural vibrancy to our economy and to our way of life.

But, unfortunately, that has also been marked by periods in our history of hate and damaging stereotypes and xenophobia, and we saw this again with COVID-19. That is why we needed to act today, to pass hate crimes legislation to protect Asian Americans in the United States of America and to make sure that they have tools to protect them.

Our AAPI communities are facing the same challenges we face in the pandemic. And trust me, we have lost some incredible Asian Americans, who ran markets, who ran restaurants, who were small business leaders and continued to work during this crisis and ultimately paid the price with their lives. But they also, in addition to facing the pandemic, have had to face a range of hate and racism against them during this time period.

According to Stop AAPI Hate, nearly 3,800 incidents of violence and hate against AAPI individuals were reported nationwide over a year since the pandemic. And sadly--sadly--women made up over half of this. Nearly 68 percent of the reported incidents of violence against Asian Americans were against Asian-American women. This must stop.

And it is very important that we think about how a fraction of these statistics that are the reported information--how many more are out there that go unreported.

My State, the State of Washington, has the seventh largest Asian- American population and the third largest Pacific Islander population in the Nation. And like the rest of the United States, we have seen an increase in these incidents.

In fact, in 2020, the State had the third highest rate of hate crimes targeted against AAPI community members. That is why I am for getting a full slate of people over at the Department of Justice, including Kristen Clarke, to deal with hate crimes. Why? Because my State is plagued by these issues, and we are not going to tolerate it. We are going to fight back and make sure that we have the infrastructure in place to recognize these things.

Just this past February, a teacher driving in the Seattle International District was assaulted with a sock containing a rock. The attacker was charged with felony assault but not a hate crime.

We have been told that there are widespread reports of AAPI elders and women throughout Western Washington who have been verbally harassed and randomly physically assaulted. The King County Coalition Against Hate and Bias is collecting information about these attacks. But we know that there have been many throughout many communities in our State.

Just a few months ago, a woman in King County and her two children were accosted with a man yelling, screaming at them just to get out-- ``Get out! Get out!'' And a man was captured on video in downtown Seattle attacking an Asian couple, spitting on them, slapping the man's face, and yelling at them: ``It's your fault.'' So we know these incidents are happening.

In fact, just a week or so ago, I participated in a roundtable of the Asian American-Pacific Islander community from my State to talk about the need for this national legislation and why it is so important we have community-based solutions, which include more cultural education to teach our children the history of the Asian-American community in the United States, mental health support in multiple languages, investing in community groups, and this legislation that was passed today that will give us better tools to prosecute those individuals who participate in hate crimes.

This bill would designate a point person within the U.S. Department of Justice to expedite the review of hate crimes and continue to work with all of us.

It requires the Attorney General to issue guidance to State, local, and Tribal law enforcement to establish an online hate crime reporting and data collection system. These are all important tools.

So I, again, want to thank our colleagues, and I want to also thank Senator Blumenthal. His bipartisan amendment would authorize the Attorney General to provide grants to States and localities to better train law enforcement on identifying, investigating, and reporting hate crimes and to operate State-run hate crime reporting hotlines.

So this legislation will help us in shining a very bright light on an alarming rise in violence against the Asian American-Pacific Islander community and help us with new tools to combat that crime.

I, again, thank my colleagues. We all must work together to stop this kind of violence.

I thank the President.

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