[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 50 (Wednesday, March 17, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1607-S1608]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              NO HATE Act

  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, we are working today in the shadow 
of a truly hideous, horrific series of murders that occurred yesterday 
in Atlanta, GA, and I want to start by expressing my sympathies to the 
families that are affected, families of innocent women who were gunned 
down heinously by a murderer there. Eight lives were taken by that 
gunman, six of them Asian women.
  There is an active, ongoing investigation, and I have no intention of 
prejudging the outcome. Justice must be done, and I have confidence in 
the law enforcement authorities of Atlanta that they will assure that 
justice is done.
  So we don't know for sure what the gunman's motivation was, but we 
know eight of the women were Asian, and we know for sure that this 
horrific shooting rampage is only the latest egregious incident in a 
sickening, despicable trend of anti-Asian-American, or AAPI, violence 
that has terrorized the Asian-American community over recent months.
  And we know many of these incidents were, in fact, hate crimes 
motivated by

[[Page S1608]]

bias, bigotry, and prejudice. Now, hate-motivated violence, as Attorney 
Garland said at his confirmation hearing, ``tear[s] at the fabric of 
our society . . . make[s] our citizens worried about walking [on] the 
streets and exercising even the most normal rights.''
  And he is absolutely correct. It tears at our society. It degrades 
our trust in each other and in the fairness of America and the 
survivability of values and rights that are central to our democracy.
  The increase in violence against Asian Americans must end, and we all 
know it. We all say it, but we must do it. In Congress, we must do 
everything in our power to provide law enforcement and prosecutors with 
the resources and the tools they need to overcome it, to successfully 
fight it, which they can do. And they need the will and determination 
to wield the tools and resources that we give them because they have to 
not only investigate, as they will this gunman, but also to effectively 
prosecute and assure just punishment.
  We don't know for sure the motivation. We have evidence. And we can't 
say for sure how many hate crimes there have been against Asian 
Americans or others in our great country, but we have a pretty good 
idea where it all came from.
  The rise in anti-Asian-American violence started with the previous 
administration, who failed to address and manage the COVID-19 pandemic, 
and rather than listen to the scientists and work to stop its spread, 
it sought to scapegoat a part of our country. It sought to scapegoat 
Asian Americans with xenophobic and hate-filled rhetoric.
  Words have consequences. We all say it. We all know it. And we must 
denounce the words that spur and spew hatred and cause or contribute to 
hate crimes. Hate crimes are a growing scourge. The numbers are 
surging, whether it is against Asian Americans, Muslim Americans, 
Jewish Americans, Black Americans. When it is against Americans, it is 
against America. Words do have consequences.
  Stop AAPI Hate, which tracks violence and harassment against the AAPI 
community, Asian Americans, received more than 1,100 reports of COVID-
related harassment, discrimination, and assault in its first two 
operational weeks last March. And now it has recorded more than 3,800 
incidents since the start of the pandemic--3,800 incidents of 
harassment, discrimination, and sometimes physical assault--spurred and 
encouraged and condoned by public officials who used that hate-filled 
rhetoric to cover their own failures in dealing with the pandemic.
  As the investigators and prosecutors go forward, we will learn more, 
and we need to let them do their jobs. But that doesn't mean we should 
remain silent, nor does it give us an excuse to be inert. We need to 
denounce that kind of rhetoric. We need to take action.
  I have proposed a measure called the NO HATE Act, which would provide 
more training for investigators and more resources for hotlines because 
these hate crimes are typically and repeatedly unreported, and it would 
provide more incentives for reporting and new penalties--or encourage 
the imposition of penalties--that truly fit the crime.
  Hate crimes are corrosive to our social fabric. They corrupt the 
pillars of our society, and their effect is unmistakable.
  They traumatize and terrorize the communities that are their 
targets--in this case, Asian Americans, who have become more and more 
fearful as these incidents have multiplied. We all have a part to do in 
stopping this scourge. And we know that it is rampant, in part, because 
of the White supremacists and domestic terrorism and violent extremism 
that showed its ugly face in this Chamber earlier this year. It showed 
its brutal, cruel force in this building.
  It is the same virus and cancer that is metastasizing in this country 
today. And its visible forms are the assaults, harassment, and 
discrimination that may well have been reflected in those murders 
yesterday.
  I hope the NO HATE Act passes, but it won't be for a while. I hope we 
can take other action, but it will take time. And in the meantime, we 
can all take it as a moral imperative as our duty to denounce--not 
condoned by our silence--these groups and their extremist ideologies in 
White supremacists that perpetuate and expand the virus and cancer of 
hate crimes and hatred. Hate speech--fighting words--incitement in our 
society.