A Timeline of Anti-Immigrant and Anti-Muslim Incidents Since Trump Took Power
Donald Trump and the GOP would have the American public believe that immigrants pose a threat to our country.
But we’ve been tracking the number of hate incidents that have targeted immigrants since Trump was inaugurated a little over two months ago, and it’s clear that the opposite is true: this country is a threat to them.
The fear gripping immigrant communities is well-founded, affecting every region of the country, from small towns and suburbs to large metropolitan areas long championed for their diversity.
We obviously can’t definitively link Trump’s rise to power with every single incident here, but there’s no debating the fact that hate crimes have spiked all over the country since he first started campaigning for the presidency.
This timeline was compiled using data from ProPublica’s Documenting Hate Project. The project is collecting reports to create a national database of hate crimes and bias incidents for use by journalists and civil-rights organizations. If you’ve been a victim or a witness, you can submit evidence here.
Though Islamophobia and xenophobia are not interchangeable terms or experiences, we looked at both categories for this timeline since so many anti-Muslim incidents are rooted in the false belief that Muslims are always foreigners. In many of these events, the victims were told they should “go back to their countries”—even if they were born here.
This is obviously just a partial list. We stuck to what we felt we could verify, and there’s no way of tabulating the countless incidents of unreported harassment that immigrants face in America. But it’s a small glimpse into what people are enduring every single day.
We’re going to keep updating this list. If there’s an incident we missed, or if you hear of anything new, please leave a comment or get in touch with us by filling out our Documenting Hate form.
JANUARY
January 23
A woman in Davis, CA, broke the windows of a mosque and placed bacon on its doors. Police are currently investigating the incident as a hate crime.
January 26
An airport worker wearing a hijab was assaulted by a traveler in New York.
January 27Someone left notes at the Mango House refugee center in Aurora, CO, threatening to “blow up all you refugees!”
January 28
On the same day that Trump’s first Muslim ban went into effect, a mosque in Victoria, TX, was gutted by a fire. While investigators have ruled it an arson, they are still unsure if this is a hate crime.
FEBRUARY
February 1
In Roseville, CA, vandals scrawled “fuck Allah” and “Muslims fuck off” on a mosque. Police are investigating it as a hate crime.
February 6
A home was smeared with feces and vandalized with about 50 hate messages and racial slurs in Peyton, CO. The homeowner paraphrased the messages as saying, “You brown or Indian shouldn’t be here.”
February 10
A 44-year-old man vandalized a mosque in Columbus, OH, writing a number of Islamophobic and politically charged messages, including “Allah is a fraud” and “Oppose Trump You Are Doomed!” Prosecutors are charging the alleged vandal with a hate crime.
February 12
A racial slur was found tagged on the garage of a Hmong family in Oakdale, MN. New to the neighborhood, the graffiti the family encountered was a derogatory term for Asians.
February 14
Anti-Muslim fliers were posted at a mosque in Bossier City, LA. The posters, which read “Imagine a Muslim-free America” originated from a white nationalist group, American Vanguard.
February 18
Three Atlanta, GA, mosques received threatening emails identical to messages sent later to two Alabama mosques. Subject lines read “YOUR ONE WARNING” and “PLAN TO RUN AND DIE.”
February 19
A threatening voicemail was left at the American Muslim Society in Dearborn, MI, saying, “Muhammad was a pedophile and all Muslims are agents of Satan.”
February 20Threatening emails were sent to mosques in Birmingham and Huntsville, AL, declaring that the senders would hunt down “Muzlims Mexicans Blacks” until they were “dead and gone.” These messages were identical to the ones sent to mosques in Atlanta.
February 20
A man in Evansville, IN, entered a mosque’s kitchen and harassed the women working inside, claiming he had left bacon outside the center’s door.
February 21
A mosque in Falls Church, VA, received mail bearing a foreign postmark that included the message, “Kill all Muslims.”
February 23
At a bar in Olathe, KS, a white man opened fire on two Indian men, allegedly shouting “get out of my country” before shooting and killing one man, Srinivas Kuchibhotla. According to one witness, the shooter thought he had killed two Iranian men.
A fire was intentionally set at a mosque in the suburbs of Tampa Bay, FL. Police are still investigating and are unsure if the arson is a hate crime.
February 24
In Lawrenceville, GA, a mailed letter was sent to a mosque reading, “death is waiting for you and your kind” with a crude drawing underneath.
February 26
A video of a Wal-Mart customer harassing a Latinx employee in Dallas, TX, went viral. On camera, the man told the employee that “foreigners are living off of us good white working people,” and that people like her should “go back to your countries.”
February 27Shots were fired into two separate businesses in the same San Francisco, CA, neighborhood: an Indian restaurant and an Eritrean restaurant. No arrests have been made, and officials haven’t said whether the incidents are related.
February 27
An Islamic community center and a mosque in Silver Spring, MD, received letters containing violent threats. One of the notes claimed the writer would “donate $100 to charity for every Muslim slaughtered.”
MARCH
March 1
Police are investigating an incident in a Santa Fe, NM, library where a couple allegedly urinated on Qur’ans.
March 1
A Guatemalan man taking the subway in Brooklyn, NY, was called a Mexican and told to go back to his country before being punched in the face.
March 2
A letter signed by a “Muslim slayer” was sent to a mosque in Brooklyn, NY. The writer also claimed to fantasize about “killing nonwhites.” The NYPD Hate Crimes Task Force is investigating the incident.
March 3
A man assaulted a Latinx woman with an umbrella in Astoria, NY, reportedly yelling “Get the fuck out of my country!” before striking her with it. The NYPD is investigating the incident as a hate crime.
March 4
A Bangladeshi man in San Jose, CA, was verbally and physically assaulted after a movie screening. The assailant allegedly used racial slurs before punching him in the chest.
March 6
Vandals tagged a Latinx man’s car in Long Beach, CA, with the word “illegal.” Vandals also targeted another car, a day care, and a church in the same neighborhood. Police are investigating the incident as a hate crime.
March 7
A man in Salem, OR, walked into a Middle Eastern restaurant, attacked an employee with a pipe, and yelled, “Go back to your country, terrorist.” The man later told officers he thought the restaurant was holding a woman as a “slave” because “that is what Arabs do.”
March 10
In Port St. Lucie, FL, a man who attempted to burn down a convenience store told authorities he did it to “run the Arabs out of our country.”
March 10
Jae Wong Yang, a Korean national, struck a young woman repeatedly with a hammer in the Koreatown neighborhood of Los Angeles. Yang reportedly asked the woman if she was Korean before attacking her. Police are investigating the assault as an attempted murder and a hate crime.
March 13
Someone allegedly ripped up hundreds of Qur’ans at an Islamic center in Tucson, AZ.
March 15
A video of a Puerto Rican woman harassing a fellow subway passenger in New York went viral. The woman asked the rider, “Why are you here? Why are you in this country if you are not with us?” before being confronted by a young Latinx woman, who defended the off-camera passenger in both Spanish and English.
An Islamic Center in Des Moines, IA, received a threatening note calling Muslims “filthy” and “vile,” and claimed Trump was going to do to Muslims “what Hitler did to the Jews.”
March 22
A woman wearing a hjiab was breastfeeding her baby in her car in the parking lot of a mall in Charlotte, NC, when a man allegedly pulled up in his truck, glared at her, and then stepped out of his pick-up to pull a rifle out of his backseat. Police are still investigating.
March 23
A man allegedly approached a woman wearing a hijab and playing with her child in a park in San Francisco, CA, and began making “anti-Muslim” remarks, allegedly threatening to shoot her.
March 24
A man commuting in Huntington, NY, spotted a cautionary sign that had been changed to “Warning, watch the illegals.”
March 25
A man was caught on video harassing an Iranian couple on the subway in New York. The harasser could be heard saying “Donald Trump is in the house” before threatening to kill the couple and someone sitting next to them. The victims were also told to “go back to [their] country.”
March 26
A vandal in Fort Collins, CO, smashed multiple windows and causing extensive damage. A Bible was also found thrown into the Islamic center.
March 28
A man was apprehended in Minneapolis after attempting to stab a Somalian man in the neck because he “hate(s) Muslims.”
March 28
Hasel Afshar, a 33-year-old Iranian refugee living in Troutdale, OR, came back to his house after a short vacation to find every room in his home vandalized. The graffiti called Afshar a “terrorist” and a Muslim (he’s actually Baha’i), and ordered him to “get out of America.” Police are investigating the incident.
March 28
According to police, a woman walking down a sidewalk in Queens, NY, was shot in the face with a bb gun in a drive-by. The men who shot her were laughing and shouting an anti-Latinx slur as they drove past.
March 28
A burglary in Fairfax County, VA, is being investigated as a hate crime after “Fuck Muslims” was scrawled across a wall. A Qur’an was also destroyed, and several green cards were stolen.