JD Vance’s wife faces racist online backlash over far-right social media posts

(WASHINGTON) — Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance’s wife, Usha Chilukuri Vance, and the couple’s children have become the targets of criticism because of their Indian heritage.

Chilukuri Vance, the daughter of Indian immigrants who grew up in San Diego, and RNC Chair Harmeet Dhillon — who is Sikh and Indian — have faced anti-Asian hate online from far-right figures.

Posts appear to have increased this week in the wake of Vance’s nomination, criticizing Vance for marrying a nonwhite man, raising concerns about the resulting influx of Indian immigrants, and discussing the so-called Great Replacement conspiracy. The posts have been viewed hundreds of thousands of times, according to individual post counts.

Stop AAPI Hate, an advocacy group that tracks anti-Asian hate incidents, condemned the attacks, arguing that the onslaught of hate has amplified the “heightened levels of fear and anxiety that Asian Americans and immigrants are currently experiencing across the country ahead of this year’s presidential election.”

The group added: “Amid a heated political climate, we continue to see South Asians under attack across all parties, including the continued doubts over the electability of Vice President Kamala Harris.”

Stop AAPI Hate has recorded thousands of potential hate incidents since 2020, when anti-Asian sentiment rose around the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

The backlash came after former President Donald Trump appeared to call for greater national unity following the assassination attempt he endured at a rally in Pennsylvania over the weekend.

“The discord and division in our society must be healed. We must heal it quickly. As Americans, we are bound by a single fate and a shared destiny. We will rise together. Or we will fall apart,” Trump said during his speech Thursday on the final day of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

It’s a stark contrast to Trump’s typical tone, which has been criticized as “inflammatory” and “divisive,” often when he talks about race and immigration.

But the former president quickly fell back on his old talk. “The greatest invasion in history is happening right here in our country,” Trump said, referring to undocumented migrants crossing the U.S. border.

However, recently released figures from the CBP show that encounters at the southern border have declined for the fourth straight month.

He continued: “They’re coming from all corners of the earth, not just South America, but Africa, Asia, the Middle East — they’re coming from everywhere and this administration is doing nothing to stop them,” Trump added.

According to the CBP, recent actions, including President Biden’s June 4 executive order restricting asylum access between border crossings, have contributed to a more than 50% drop in border encounters over the past six weeks.

JD Vance has previously criticized Trump and his supporters for their rhetoric on race, a response to the current flood of criticism of Vance’s wife and children.

J.D. Vance, who previously called himself a “Never Trump guy,” cited Trump’s “many successes in office” as a reason for changing his opinion of the former president. He will now join Trump on the Republican ticket for the November presidential election.

Vance eventually aligned himself with the former president around 2021, praising his time in office and apologizing for his attacks on him.