When national security becomes a weapon of political fear mongering, it doesn’t just fail – it backfires. In Trump’s second term, the United States isn’t just guarding its borders or secrets. It’s waging war on its own people – especially those who look or sound foreign.
Federal surveillance, visa crackdowns and prosecutorial overreach are no longer rare or cautionary tales. They are the operating logic of a government that equates ethnic identity with disloyalty. And the victims are not just foreign nationals –they are Americans citizens, permanent residents, students, professors, researchers and community leaders from Chinese and other nonwhite diasporas.
This is not an immigration issue. It’s a civil liberties crisis.
A second-term escalation
Since President Trump’s second inauguration, his administration has rapidly escalated surveillance and legal action targeting Chinese and other Asian communities. While the White House calls it “countering espionage,” what’s unfolding is a racialized purge of talent, dignity and due process.
International students are being detained at airports under vague suspicions. Professors are facing FARA investigations for attending academic conferences. People are being tracked, profiled and in some cases jailed – based not on what they did, but who they are and where they’ve been.
Consider this: Since January 2025, more than 60 Chinese and Chinese American scholars have been subjected to federal inquiries or visa denials without clear evidence of wrongdoing. Multiple international graduate students were denied reentry or detained without formal charges.
The Department of Homeland Security’s “foreign influence” watchlists have quietly expanded to include individuals merely affiliated with Chinese institutions – no espionage, no funding, no intent – just association.
This is the new normal. The Biden-era DOJ memos tempering overreach under FARA (the Foreign Agents Registration Act) have been rescinded. Surveillance programs such as Suspicious Activity Reporting (SAR) are turbocharged. And the prosecutorial machinery once used to pursue terrorists is now being deployed against students, researchers and public intellectuals of Asian descent.
From surveillance to persecution
Let’s name the problem: This is racialized persecution under the banner of national security. And it’s spreading.
Programs like SAR encourage anonymous reporting of “suspicious behavior,” a term so vague it now includes things like speaking Mandarin in public, taking photos near infrastructure or attending a foreign policy panel. These reports, entered into federal databases with no due process, can follow a person for life. There is no way to appeal or clear your name.
Meanwhile, the Foreign Agents Registration Act has become a cudgel used to intimidate international researchers and journalists. Originally designed to counter Nazi propaganda, FARA has morphed into a tool for casting suspicion on academics who collaborate across borders – even when their work is open-source, unfunded and entirely legal.
The result? Fear. Chilling effects. Reputations destroyed. Families separated. Careers derailed. Trust broken.
This is how soft power collapses – not from foreign interference, but from domestic overreaction.
Who is being targeted?
Let’s be clear: The focus is not on foreign spies. It’s on foreigners, or those who look like them. Among the most scrutinized are members of the Chinese diaspora, which includes 5.4 million people in the US and nearly 370,000 Chinese international students – the largest foreign student population in the country. Add to that the growing number of South Asian, Arab, and African scholars flagged by new interagency screening initiatives, and the pattern becomes undeniable.
This isn’t about national security. It’s about national identity – and who gets to claim belonging.
This crackdown also serves as political theater. It plays well to the nativist base and offers headlines about being “tough on China.” But the real consequences are borne by communities who now live in fear of arbitrary detention, loss of visa status or public vilification.
America’s own goals
Let’s be brutally honest: This strategy is not only unjust – it’s self-defeating.
By alienating the very communities that fuel our scientific breakthroughs, diplomatic fluency and international reach, we are sabotaging our future. The US has long led the world not just because of military power but because of its openness – its ability to attract, integrate and elevate the best minds.
Now, those minds are going elsewhere. A 2025 survey by the Association of American Universities shows that 43% of Chinese graduate students in STEM fields are reconsidering their plans to remain in the US, citing fear of legal harassment. Canada, the UK and Australia are actively recruiting talent fleeing this crackdown.
We are bleeding soft power. And we’re doing it to ourselves.
The demand: Defend liberty, stop the war on ‘foreignness’
This isn’t just policy failure. It’s a moral emergency. And the response must match the scale of the threat.
Here’s what we must demand:
- Congressional hearings into racial profiling, prosecutorial abuse, and DHS/FBI surveillance of diaspora communities;
- A legislative rollback of FARA overreach and SAR-based watchlisting, with enforceable due process protections;
- Establishing a permanent inspector general task force with subpoena power to audit ICE and DHS activities as a mandate to review racial and religious targeting;
- Defunding surveillance and enforcement programs that rely on anonymous tips and racial heuristics, particularly within ICE’s Counterterrorism and Criminal Exploitation Unit (CTCEU);
- Legal defense and civil rights campaigns led by universities, civil society, and Asian American advocacy groups;
- A federal civil liberties watchdog agency – similar to the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board – empowered to audit domestic surveillance and academic interference;
- Community-based engagement, without excluding resistance movements, to support grassroots movements advocating for immigrant rights and transparency in federal enforcement actions – including sanctuary campuses, data privacy shields for international scholars and refusal to comply with unlawful federal data requests;
- Congressional hearings and investigations into potential racial profiling and prosecutorial overreach by ICE and DHS;
- Legislative reforms amening laws like the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) to prevent misuse against international scholars and students.
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka’s arrest serves as a stark reminder of the potential for federal overreach and the importance of safeguarding civil liberties for all individuals, regardless of their background or status. This is not the time for neutrality or technocratic reform. This is a fight over the soul of the American republic.
This is how democracies erode
The Trump administration’s second term has made clear that national security is being weaponized against perceived outsiders. The real threat is not only at the border – it’s in our institutions, our data systems, and our laws, silently turning difference into guilt.
To accept this is to abandon the principles that once made America credible, powerful and free.
We cannot let that happen.
Yujing Shentu, PhD, is an independent scholar and writer on digital politics, international political economy and US-China strategic competition.
