When President Joe Biden signed a landmark bill on hate crimes in 2021, he said many Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders were afraid to leave their homes after being “attacked, scapegoated, harassed” during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We see you,” he told the community, saying his entire administration, including the Department of Justice, would use the new law “to step up” and help solve “a critical problem of hate crimes being underreported.”
Two weeks ago, more than 18 months after the bill’s signing, the Biden administration touted its work implementing the hate crimes bill as part of a 30-page strategy report on advancing equity and opportunity in the communities – described by the administration as the first of its kind.
But a closer look by USA TODAY found that key initiatives of the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act have yet to be launched roughly two years after the legislation sought to bolster hate crime reporting and address the lack of resources available for state and local law enforcement to report attacks as they happen.
The analysis by USA TODAY comes as renewed attacks have put violence directed at Asian Americans back in spotlight.
- The FBI did not report an increase in hate crimes affecting the Asian American and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities in the months after the bill passed. The incidents that were recorded in the agency’s publicly facing database were only a small fraction of what has been reported to state authorities and the nonprofit organization Stop AAPI Hate.
- Though the bill specifically promised federal funding for state-run hate crime hotlines, those hotlines have not yet been implemented. When the grants are given out in March, only two states will benefit. In the meantime, a handful of states and a nonprofit organization continue to fill the gap.
- The bill authorized the Justice Department to use grants to help local agencies report crimes through federal…
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