Assembly Select Committee on Racism, Hate, and Xenophobia

We will call the Select Committee on Hate, Racism, and Xenophobia to order. I want to thank the members of this committee for their willingness to engage in this very important issue. Hate crimes are at some of its highest levels ever recorded in the State of California. Unfortunately, this hostility is fueled by the deliberate dehumanization, scapegoating, and targeting of historically marginalized communities for political and economic gain.

Every single day, we see protected classes under attack and we must recognize that this hate does not happen in a vacuum. It is being actively cultivated, not only in California or this country, but all over the world. We cannot ignore the digital frontline of this battle as well. Unchecked online radicalization is pouring gasoline on these fires. Algorithms designed for engagement are pushing extremist content into our homes and to the feeds of our young people while digital echo chambers normalize dehumanization and translate online hate into real-world physical harm. Tragically, this hostility isn't just coming from fringe Internet groups.

It is being modeled, sanctioned, and policy driven at the highest levels of our current federal administration. Whether it is the weaponization of federal authority to target immigrant communities, the stripping of protections for our trans and LGBTQ siblings, or executive actions aimed at erasing civil rights and diversity efforts, the message from Washington is unmistakable. At its core, this isn't just an attack on specific communities. It is a direct attack on the very foundation of our democracy, because democracy cannot survive when whole groups of people are marginalized, silenced, or stripped of their basic human rights.

A true democracy relies on equal justice, public trust, and the fundamental promise that every single person has a voice and a seat at the table. So when hate is allowed to divide us, democracy itself breaks down. Protecting our communities and protecting our democracy are one and the same battle. So let us be unequivocally clear: an attack on one of us is an attack on all of us.

While bad actors online and the current federal administration criminalize, target, attack, erase, and dehumanize our communities, this legislature, this state, and this committee will act as a shield. So we will continue to defend our democratic values and lift up our protected populations so their voices are heard loud and clear. That is why-- that is what today is about: uplifting our communities, defending our democracy, resisting federal hostility, and standing in unyielding solidarity with one another.

So I want to thank the panelists who will be coming here to participate and let them know as well that we see you, we hear you, and we have your back in this battle together. We will also hear from the state-- from state departments and commissions to help us understand the issues we are facing and to help us to chart the path forward. So at this time, I wanna make sure that everyone also knows that at the end of all the-- the two panels that we will have today, we will also have public comment as well.

So let's just jump in it, and we will ask our first panel to come up, the California Department of Justice and the California Commission on the State of Hate to go over the recent data that we are seeing from 2025 and what can we do to continue to counter these efforts. We will start off with the California Department of Justice when you're ready.

Wonderful. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair. So lovely to be here. My name is Regina Garza. I'm the Special Assistant Attorney General at the California Department of Justice, and I'm happy too for this opportunity to talk about our 2025 Hate Crimes in California Report. So, as you know, the department publishes this report annually, and what it reflects are the hate crime data that we receive that are submitted from local law enforcement agencies across California. It provides consistent statewide source of information about reported hate crimes in California.

The data itself is intended to help policymakers, law enforcement agencies, community organizations, researchers, and the public writ wide better understand the trends and the patterns that we're seeing across the states and consider the actions that might be responsive to those trends and patterns. So before discussing the report itself, I did just wanna make an important point, and that's the statistics-- what the statistics themselves represent, right?

So they represent the data we receive from law enforcement agencies. They do not measure every hate crime that occurs in California. It must-- in order to qualify for the data that we receive from the law enforcement agencies, it must meet the legal definition of a hate crime under California law and is based on information available through their investigative processes. We know that hate crimes are historically underreported and that reporting practices may vary across different jurisdictions.

As a result, the data should be understood as indicators of reported criminal activity rather than a comprehensive measure of hate in our state. So with these limitations in mind, I do wanna highlight four important broad findings from our 2025 report. First, reported hate crime events remained at historically elevated levels despite the modest 3.4% decline of reported hate crime events between 2024 and 2025.

So we're talking about it-- in 2024, we had 2,023 events reported, where in 2025, we had 1,955 hate crime events reported. So while the decrease itself is welcome, nearly 2,000 reported hate crime events in a year is still far above what California experienced a decade ago. That reminds us that hate crimes continue to pose a significant public safety and civil rights challenge for the state. Second, race and ethnic ethnicity-based bias remain the largest category of reported hate crime in the state. They account for more than half of all reported events.

Within that category, anti-Black, anti-African American bias remain the most frequently reported bias motivation with an increase of 2.8% from 494 in 2024 to 508 in 2025. The report also reflects that there was a more than a 30% increase in reported hate crime events motivated by anti-Hispanic and anti-Latino bias from 198 in 2024 to 258 last year, while citizenship and immigration status bias more than doubled from 16 to 40 over the course of the year. Third, religious-based crimes remain a significant concern despite the overall decrease of 3.4%.

So that's down from last year, or-- excuse me. In 2024, it was 406, and last year, it went down to 392. Similar to prior years, anti-Jewish accounted for the largest share of reported religion-based hate crime events. Muslim, Sikh, and other faith communities also continued to be reported at increased levels, and that underscores that religious communities across the state continue to experience targeted victimization. Fourth, hate crime motivations by sexual orientation, gender, and gender identity bias continue to represent a substantial share of reported hate crimes. The trend may differ across different protected classes.

While some categories declined compared with others in 2024, the report shows that an increase in gender bias hate crimes events increased from 20-- with an increase of 23.8% from 84 in 2000--excuse me--in 2024 to a 104 in 2025. And then-- so to look at our report, just to kind of give you a synopsis the way that it's organized, tables 1 through 6 provide you the analysis of the data we received in 2025.

Tables 7 through 11 provide you the prosecutorial data piece as well, and then the latter half tables 11 through 24 provide you the 10-year overview. So when you look across that 10-year overview in our report, there are several broad patterns that remain consistent. Race and ethnicity continue to account for the largest share of reported hate crimes.

Religious bias, sexual orientation bias, disability bias, and gender-related bias also continue to affect Californians across the state. Certain communities, including Black Californians, Jewish Californians, LBGTQ plus individuals, and other protected groups continue to experience disproportionate victimization in reported bias. While the actual numbers may fluctuate, these are longstanding patterns that remain persistent over time. It's also important to understand what the data does not provide or tell us.

The data allows your data to describe reported trends, identify the most frequently targeted protected classes, and monitor changes in reported hate crimes over time. It doesn't tell us why. The report does not attribute increases or decreases to any single cause, whether social, political, economic, or technological. Likewise, it doesn't measure unreported hate crimes or broader incidents of hate that do not meet California's definition under Penal Code Section 422.55. Those types of causal conclusions require research beyond the scope of the annual report. Ultimately, the report is both a measurement tool and a call to action.

It reinforces the importance of encouraging reporting, supporting victims, training law enforcement, improving data quality, and strengthening partnerships among government, community organizations, and affected communities. And the California Department of Justice remains committed to working with all of our partners to ensure that every Californian can live free from violence, intimidation, and discrimination because of who they are. Thank you.

Thank you. Now we'll move on to the Commission on Hate.

Good morning, Chair Jackson and members of the committee. I'm Professor Brian Levin, Chair of the California Commission on the State of Hate. The commission's goals are to strengthen California's efforts to monitor, prevent, and respond to hate activity. We have three priority areas: one, provide an annual accounting of hate activity in California, two, develop recommendations for enhancing resources and support for those targeted by hate, three, develop recommendations for preventing and reducing hate.

All of our work is evidence-based and community-informed. We view peer-reviewed research studies, invite some of the top scholars on the topic to our meetings and fora, analyze data on hate, and consult with other of the nation's leading subject matter experts. We've also partnered with community organizations and heard from the public about what they're seeing on the ground.

What have we accomplished? We've held 13 community fora across California and dozens of public meetings featuring community members and top researchers. We've developed a training for law enforcement to respond to reports of hate, and we've issued 42 interim policy recommendations from combating hate in California. But what have we found? As we've just heard, hate is widespread in California and persists at elevated levels.

We found that about 3.1 million Californians experienced at least one act of hate within just one year, which includes both hate crimes and noncriminal hate incidents. About 650,000 Californians, according to these victimization studies that we've involved in, experienced hate that was potentially criminal in nature, such as physical violence or property damage.

When we compared these statistics to law enforcement data, we found that there are potentially well over a half a million more victims of hate-motivated violence and property damage than are recorded in official law enforcement statistics. We saw that many groups have been historically targeted by hate continue to experience hate at disproportionate rates in California. We saw high rates of hate against communities of color, LGBTQI plus people, and people with disabilities, many of whom don't end up in official data.

Data from California DOJ documents historic record with regard to anti-Latino hate here in California. By the way--and preliminary data show this is true nationally as well--this is over a span of 30 years. In fact, hate crimes for many communities reached some of their highest levels in 30 years. Over the last ten years, Jews and Latinos had the greatest percentage increase and African Americans had the highest number of victimizations.

Whether it be hate crime or other types of targeted violence, we've seen not only increases this decade, but--just let me--this is unofficial prelim data, and it's actually a little more for 2025 nationally. It's not out yet, but as you can see, California, even with a slight decline, declined less than the rest of the nation as a whole, and this was true across a variety of groups, including for instance, Jewish folks and others.

One of the things, though, that we're seeing is not only these increases, but a diversification with regard to targeting, organization of offenders, and motivating prejudices which now range across the ideological spectrum for both hate crime and targeted extremist violence. The data also tells us how to support victims of hate, and we've learned a few things.

Our data revealed people need a wide range of resources beyond just law enforcement. In our survey, nearly one in three victims did not get the resources and services that they needed after experiencing the most severe hate incident in the past year. The most common unmet need, according to this joint CHIS study, related to mental health services, such as counseling. Other common unmet needs were physical protection, help working with the police, legal assistance, financial assistance, and time off from work.

Indeed, Washington State has implemented a law to help hate crime victims with regard to time off from work and other things. We've also experienced the research on extraordinary rates of targeted violence against the unhoused population. In California, we've seen shootings and other violence attacks against the unhoused, including a report that just came out within the last month or so.

Compared to the general population--and indeed, the California State Senate did a study over 20 years ago establishing this--unhoused individuals in Los Angeles, for example, were about five times more likely to be victims of physical violence and 31 times more likely to experience sexual violence. Hate persists online, with about one in five victims of hate in California having experienced hate online within the past year, particularly teens.

In recent years, the greatest-- the great--excuse me--the White supremacist Great Replacement Theory has operated as a motivating framework that construes national events through a foreigner versus native narrative, leading to online threats against many different groups, including Jewish, Latino, Asian, Muslim, and Black communities, among others, as we're seeing, by the way, with what's happening with our Haitian residents.

Right before the election during national debates, a lie was promoted saying that Haitians, immigrants, were killing and eating pets, and it was repeated by the vice presidential candidate. We saw in Springfield, Ohio alone more anti-Black and more anti-immigrant ethnicity type of hate crimes in that one month than the entirety for that whole rest of the year and the year before combined. And now their status as protected refugees is being withdrawn. So it's not a single thing, but part of a context.

At the same time, industry trends are shifting away from this content moderation while restricting access for researchers who study these topics. Our report outlines policy strategies for preventing and reducing online hate. The commission has also been developing recommendations, some of which I shared with this committee last year. The need for these recommendations have only grown since. These recommendations include a permanent data infrastructure in California to measure how hate is impacting California.

What is measured matters. When federal grants for research are being pulled back, it is critical to to support rigorous research that informs California's efforts to combat hate. Two, California needs to require hate crimes training of law enforcement officers. Law enforcement are often the first responders to hate crime, but without ongoing training after the academy, there are often gaps in how prepared they are to do this, particularly among outlying areas. California needs to have the right resources and services to support impacted individuals and communities.

We recommend ongoing funding to support community-based organizations that provide critical support to communities impacted by hate, including California's Nonprofit Security Grant Program and grants for community-based organizations, such as Stop the Hate Grants, and as we've seen in that terrible attack on our mosque in San Diego. This year, we're considering new recommendations, and these include we need access at the commission to information about hate crimes in California.

Without access to data, we cannot understand important details about hate crimes in the state that could lead to data-driven recommendations. We recommend adding statutory provisions that allow state agencies and local government agencies to share data with the Commission on the State of Hate in a privacy-sensitive way. We are also considering a recommendation to expand protected leave and eligibility for wage replacement programs to better meet the needs of victims of hate, which we found in our victimization surveys.

There are several types of job-protected leave and wage replacement programs in California that people could use when they are a victim of hate, but there are restrictive criteria that make many hate victims ineligible to take them. Leave laws could be expanded to meet the needs of more victims by ensuring job-protected leave is available in more workplaces. The criteria for wage replacement programs could also be revised to help hate victims.

For instance, workers could be eligible for state disability insurance if they take leave from work due to a hate crime. It is important that we continue to pay attention to this. Remember, even with these slight declines, which are less so than the nation as a whole, we are still in the top handful of years since modern hate crime data collection has taken place. And, indeed, some of the things that we're seeing with limited data for 2026 are increases in places like New York and Los Angeles and more recently in San Diego, particularly when we realized a couple of things. We have an ongoing war occurring and an important midterm election year.

These have been catalysts in the past, and we should pay attention to that. Lastly, 12 of the worst 14 months for hate crime occurred in the second half of those years. So, I encourage you to learn more about our findings and our recommendations and the reports on our website, and thank you, Chair, in particular for your leadership, and I don't say it just because you're on the hometown team. We're very thankful for the extraordinary work that you've done and this wonderful committee for your time today, and I look forward to your questions. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Before we begin questions, a dear ally and friend, Assembly Member Lowenthal, is joining us for part of our time here today. I wanna give him an opportunity, if you'd like, to make any comments.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd love to, like, just get right into it--

Let's do it.

--if that's okay.

Let's do it.

May I ask a question? Would that be all right if I go right into it? So much of what you're talking about are impacts of hate, right? These are the results. This is what we're seeing. This is the data. This is what we have in California. These are the varying groups. But I've been thinking a lot about the genesis of hate.

What are the conditions that are creating these increases? What are the conditions by which we should all be alarmed? And what are the things that we can be focusing on here? What are the things that we can learn from in history and other situations, and where are there commonalities, and what are the things in your estimation that the Legislature can be looking at to try and change some of those conditions? Otherwise, this is a-- it's ultimately gonna be a game of defense all the time, and that's what I'm worried about. So do you have any thoughts, comments on that?

For me or my colleague?

Whoever-- whomever. I'm probably gonna ask this question to everybody who's actually testifying today.

Some of the key things that we look at with regard to the study of prejudice, which is an attitude, is how are these attitudes anchored and then spread? And what we find is, as Dr. Robin Williams--not the comedian but the late Cornell professor--talked about, a printed circuit of stereotypes, negative stereotypes, which identify certain groups of folks as legitimate targets for aggression.

What I think has terribly been happening most recently is the political polarization that we've seen has become cover for some very evil folks to scapegoat--as we saw with regard to our Haitian brothers and sisters--to scapegoat them with regard to not only government policy but with regard to groups of people being a threat and wielding disproportionate power against either the government or regular citizens.

So we saw this happen in Nazi Germany, for instance, but now with the World Wide Web and the decrease in content moderation, and indeed the popularity of some very hateful folks out there who are promoting these stereotypes, it comes into everybody's social media and everybody's inbox. And it-- and one of the other things I'd like to say, it is now borderless. A Nazi group that threatened me, its leader was in Europe, in Russia.

So we are seeing now not only locally-based hate manifested, but we're seeing it glom on in different strata, different levels from malefactors that are not only here in the United States but around the world. And some of the things I think we need to do is education, also with regard to young people, critical information gathering skills, and encouraging, to the extent that we can, large social media companies, as this Legislature attempted to do, to keep to their rules with regard to moderation and transparency to exactly what they're doing because the folks that study this show a big increase with hate online.

And what we've seen multiple times is that when there's a catalytic event, whether it's social justice protests, a war, a conflictual election, there are high transmitters that then will take prejudiced stereotypes, wrap them around that issue, and it goes literally around the world. And we've seen that even with the head, the owner of one of the largest social media companies himself with millions of followers promoting these kinds of negative stereotypes online.

To build on that, we've had some significant events in the last just two years where radicalization led to attacks, one in Los Angeles at a synagogue and another one in a mosque in San Diego. And what we've seen is it actually has two characteristics: under the age 20 and male. And they got most of their radicalization online. And what I've been disappointed in is that the State of California does not have its own way of countering that radicalization online. We don't have an equal tool. We rely on volunteers, we rely on community-based organizations, but the state itself is not involved in counter messages to restore humanity, to understand the common bonds that we all share together, right?

What can we do to start making sure that if we already know-- and the White supremacist strategist, the strategies, anyone who is benefiting from hate and the weaponization of that, there is no different from then of those tactics than Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. They're using the exact same methods, packaging it a little differently from time to time depending on the time, depending on what's up latest in the news, but what are we seeing and what are we doing and what can we do more to begin to specifically address the radicalization, particularly of young men who are the primary?

And by the way, these young men are of all backgrounds, all demographics. There is no particular population besides young men, right? And so, what do you all have for that? And I wanna definitely hear from both of you all as we start, because these are the biggest issues that we're seeing now.

Yeah. No, I appreciate that, and thank you for highlighting that. We certainly are aware of those trends that you have uplifted and highlighted as a concern. I would say from the DOJ perspective, I think we see the data as a good starting point to understand which messages might be resonating with those groups to the extent that they rise to the level of an actual hate crime under California law. So as I walk through a little bit of the data, or at least the highlights from the data, the biggest takeaway is all the different protected classes aren't necessarily being impacted at the same rates, right?

And it's misleading when you look at a modest decrease and gives to suggest that it's getting better, right? It's not. There are disproportionate ways different communities are feeling that level of victimization and targeting. As my esteemed colleague pointed out, the anti-Latino/Hispanic rhetoric is significant. That had a very high increase of 30% in the last year alone, and I think trying to understand which types of bias, the types of bias motivations we're seeing most in the data might also help target resources or at least have an understanding of what messages are most resonating to different hate groups that are targeting these communities.

I think another important value in looking at the data is also recognizing that different communities are geographically disproportionately seeing those hate trends. So there may be a way to look at the data and think about how to target to some of those communities that are most experiencing these types of trends. I think among the 2025 reporting, Los Angeles County, Orange County stood out as having heightened reporting of hate crime. Same with the Bay Area counties. It's notable to look at the trends in reporting, even in the last 10 years for the communities there.

And then, Inland and Central Valley regions, I think, when you look at the trend lines over time as well, particularly with the diversifying communities in some of those areas, I think it's worthwhile to look at the data as a good starting point to understand where targeted resourcing or specific types of messaging might be a good place to invest and think about how to support communities impacted by the hate rhetoric.

Thank you. As I said before, we need to have both education and empowerment with regard to users and increasing the ability of researchers to track what's going on online. And there's some very interesting stuff that we've seen, for instance. So when there's rhetoric about a conflictual event give an example like just 2020 with the social justice protest.

When the President of The United States said when the looting starts, the shooting starts, that day, that next day was the worst, was among the five worst days for African American, Anti-African American hate crimes.

And what we also saw was when we look at who was getting negatively treated in, it wasn't just anti, it wasn't just African American folks. It was Antifa. It was, Black Lives Matters. And even Democrats were caught up in that wave of aggression. So, that we need this kind of access to data, which a lot of these companies are not doing.

But I think, I I just wanna, yeah, really hyper-focused here because we already have to me, we already have enough data to understand that radicalization online is happening. The question for me is what strategies can we counter that? How can we un-radicalize people using the very same strategies that they're doing to radicalize them, right, before it leads to physical harm?

We need especially for young people in many countries, for instance, like France and Australia, are looking at restrictions with regard to younger people. At the very least, for large social and by the way, this is just my humble opinion, not the commissions, because they have enough problems with me as it is saying, talking out of turn.

I do that all the time. I mean, that's it.

So I wanna make sure that but I do think, for instance, how about when young people get access to certain social media sites? They have to go through some kind of minimal training about how to recognize certain things on there, or content restrictions particularly with regard to those sites where young people access. This is not this is not a secret. What we've seen is these large social media companies, have been stepping away from information checking and content moderation. It's gotten worse.

So it could be a potentially a bifurcated structure with the most significant content neutral restrictions, but nonetheless, importantly, there's no first amendment protection for, for instance, threats and violence. So perhaps a two-tiered method with regard to content moderation generally, but also with respect to younger folks getting some kind of training with that.

The other thing is when certain keywords are looked at, maybe provide young people or their parents with information about how to sidetrack and exit the radicalization, but we're finding radicalization, particularly with young people, goes very quickly. And about fifteen, sixteen years ago, US Senate showed that young folks were getting radicalized, more quickly than in the past, and I think that's occurred that development has even sped up since then.

So I think we have to look at training, content moderation, and particularly with regard to young people, perhaps a two-tier method where their Internet access can be moderated and regulated and perhaps with parental notifications.

Lastly, when certain kinds of words come up, it's out there. There can even be a privacy neutral, AI type of response, which says if someone's looking up various epithets, here's what they should know, here's what their parents should know, and that's one way of dealing also. One last thing. One thing that we've seen across the spectrum with regard to many hate crimes and particularly the more extremist types of violence, it goes across the ideological spectrum now.

We've been seeing, hard left, types of attacks, although those have generally not been as violent.

They've been more property-oriented. But the bottom line is these companies won't do anything unless there's some kind of regulation or cost to them in their pockets, and they, they have dropped the ball, particularly with regard to how this wave of aggressive and bigoted language not only comes in from The United States, but from elsewhere across the world.

If I could make one quick comment to that. It's not that they, they're profiting off of this. They're actually profiting off this process that we're speaking of. And that is something we absolutely should be considering.

You know, we've our select committee introduced three bills based upon the commission's recommendations this year. Two of them are still alive. And myself and Assemblymember Lowenthal have both two training bills. And 1 of the things number 1, I don't think we both expected the type of response. This was like I mean, I'm always looking for trouble, but I was even surprised.

A common opposition statement on our bills was that by ensuring that elected officials and employees have training on hate speech. That sometime just by having the training infringes on people's first amendment rights. And it is these bills are intended to censor people and that these bills are intended to determine in and of itself whether, you know, someone is breaking the law or not. What are your sentiments in terms of I mean, we train on sexual harassment.

We train on ethics, and all ethics is, it may not be against the law, but you probably shouldn't do it anyway.

Right? I mean, what are your responses to the idea of, you know, the data obviously suggested that there is an ink, a correlation between what public figures say publicly and a rise in hate crimes against the particular people they have talked about, characterized, dehumanized, targeted. What are your thoughts on those arguments?

As long as viewpoint isn't punished, I see little issue with encapsulating in trainings what our national and state aspirations are with respect to equal treatment and protection under the law. We can, you know, sometimes when these these criticisms come off, it's from the longest plank. You don't have to have the longest plank. You can have a firm, shorter plank, which, doesn't violate any constitutional restrictions. And indeed, you were right.

When president Bush spoke six days after 911 of tolerance towards Muslims, Hate crimes dropped precipitously the next day and two thirds into the next year, never to rise to those previous levels. And we've seen the opposite, as I said, 11/09/2016, day after election. That was the highest level of hate crimes that we saw in over a dozen years. Similarly, when we have issues with regard to military conflicts or elections, we see these kinds of incidents go up indeed.

One only has to look at, for instance, 2020 with regard to attacks against African Americans, which skyrocketed to among the worst levels we've seen since data collection began, and it was intertwined with messaging on the Internet and repetition from high transmitters, and we see that again and again.

So it's really important for people in positions of high leadership to know that messaging does correlate to these things. And indeed we saw, Will Carlos did some research for Reveal, showing hundreds of cases with regard to after the 2016 election, the president's name was used in the commission of various hate incidents and hate crimes.

So the idea that we couldn't train people who are in sensitive positions who might impact how aggression is manifested, sounds to me without foundation unless you use some blatantly unconstitutional, you know, and we always see what I don't know who was the governor or a political comedy commentator said, you know, sometimes when politics are involved, things go to the umth degree. We don't we don't have to be there.

We can stick to the various statements and the various trainings that we've given traditionally.

Just because it's not popular now to say that trans kids should be protected from discrimination, doesn't mean we shouldn't say it. Or to say that we have disproportionate outcomes with regard to how certain groups are treated or with regard to their levels with with regard to hate crime and non reporting.

These are facts, and if we start with our national aspirations for equality and facts that come from commissions such as ours and universities and other studies, I think that that's where, we win because we this is not a political type of situation. This is something that we look at, for instance, Republican administrations from years past, the national level, where prejudice was radically condemned, and we're not seeing that today.

So I think the importance of just the kind of legislation, that you are introducing is something that really should be taken far more seriously and not just shunt it aside because it might be politically unpopular.

This is the kind of training that is desperately needed today, and I appreciate you taking such an important leadership role in this state on this topic.

I think my my last question is I mean, obviously, the long term trend is in an upward trajectory when you look at multiple years as opposed to just one year. And which means you see depending on the national dialogue, what some groups are targeting more than others in any given year. Right? Thank goodness we're seeing a decrease from our API brothers and sisters from the, humongous high back during the pandemic. Right?

Hopefully, we will continue to see a downward trend for our Jewish brothers and sisters. We saw data in LA about our, those of Middle Eastern descent that we're starting to see upward trends in that direction. And then although we're seeing decreases in the LGBTQ community as a whole, the community that continues to increase at this time is our trans siblings. Right? But one thing remains the constant, and that is there's never been a time where African Americans have not been at the top.

Never been. As a matter of fact, it's so normalized that we don't even consider it one of our highest issues when we're dealing with things because we're just we've just accepted this is just what we have to deal with. What is it gonna take to start seeing and by the way, from 2024 to 2025, there was a decrease in overall hate crimes, but African Americans still got an increase. What is it gonna take?

What should we say to African Americans in the state of California who, by the way, was on only came here to flee the South, only to continue to be met with the highest rates.

Only make up 7% of the 6% of the population, by the way, heading towards 5% of the population. But still, seeing the highest rates and has never not seen the highest rates of hate crimes. What are what discussions are being had to address that? Cause a lot of times we address the populations that are seeing rapid increases, but we never get to the point where who's always been at the top? And what are we doing there?

Discussion? Thoughts?

No. I mean, you're right. It's these have been long standing problems and challenges. And I know particularly since 2021, attorney general Bonta has really undertaken to really focus on more cross-sector type of collaborations to really reach communities. He did, he undertook, I think it was 13 different communities.

He did hate crime round tables, right? And so that was an effort to try to reach a diverse group of rural communities across the state. Some of them were urban, some of them were less, right?

And it was an effort to really try to understand what the communities were saying, understand that we are working to try to bring people together because I do think it is those partnerships that DOJ has really been focused on providing resources to, thinking about the victim support side that is needed that my colleague spoke about, as well as thinking about ways to make sure that prosecutors, law enforcement agencies, a whole host of other community members have the tools that they need to know how to undertake that work.

A lot of this stuff is, at least on the crime side, what we're seeing is a lot of this stuff is very much at a local level.

So making sure that they have the resources, information to know how to do to create, commissions locally that can help be responsive and tailor strategies, and efforts that so that they recognize what they look like in their various communities. Right? They might look different depending on where you are and the sensitivity of the different communities, the willingness to come forward and respond.

A lot of times that takes making sure that there are those local connections, those cross-sector collaborations that are happening that can recognize what it looks like in their communities, understand where the gaps are, and then try to tailor responses based on what that looks like. While at the same time, with the guidance that we provide prosecutors, law enforcement agencies, victims' advocates, that is an attempt to make sure that our laws are enforced uniformly.

So while the strategies to help make sure that there is reporting, that there is responses happening at the local level. We wanna make sure that there is, that folks at all levels of government understand what the law requires and what it takes to uniformly prosecute and investigate any type of hate crime. So I think that's the way DOJ has been looking at it. I know it's only been five years since 2021.

But I think those types of efforts, the work that our community awareness and response and engagement office, we have outreach managers throughout the state, and they're undertaking efforts to make sure that when we release reports like the hate crime reports, we've had three, different virtual community briefings in an effort to make sure that they understand what data that we have, what types of resources we're putting out in the community.

I think those are all the efforts that those are the types of efforts that California Department of Justice has really been undertaking to promote that cross sector collaboration, awareness, and resourcing of the tools that they may need to be able to craft the localized responses that they need.

Our committee chair is totally right. In both the United States and in California, African Americans remain the most targeted group, and I don't think it's an accident that we've seen something. And just give me a second for this because this is important. I think we are mainstreaming an evil here, and it's supported by data.

In 2020, with the social justice protests, we saw a shift with regard to hate crimes against African Americans that had not changed since 1996. That was-- even though African Americans were the number one target, their slice of that pie was shrinking every year until 2020 when it exploded. And what did we see? We saw this kind of shotgun approach. And what I mean is, DEI, immigration, and crime were used as political wedge issues and it had a Black face on it.

So when we look at, for instance, the president of the United States or major governmental entities like DHS promoting Whiteness as American and promoting fear of people of color--I'm talking about even in social media--we have a ton of them where African Americans or Black people are singled out for being the cause of issues relating to unfairness with regard to DEI or criminality or issues with immigration, calling nations that are predominantly Black by the most egregious, horrifying names.

We have now mainstream, within politics and then with high transmitters and social media, these negative stereotypes against African Americans. And what we've seen since 2020 is these elevated levels. So we have these catalytic periods, but what we've seen, whether it's our Asian American friends, our Jewish American friends, or our African American friends and neighbors, that even when things recede, they recede to a historically high levels where that tinder is still ready to be lit. And when does it happen?

It happens with news events, it happens around elections, and we've seen it in the manufacture of a lie about Haitian refugees who suffered from an earthquake and are now being returned to a nation where our own state department says American citizens shouldn't go because of the risks there. So what we've had with regard to African Americans in particular-- and just bear with me because my mentor was an African American judge and scholar, A. Leon Higginbotham.

We are not only seeing these stereotypes, which are not backed up by facts, but an aggression against real education about the horrors that have been bestowed to our African American brothers and sisters since even before the country was formed. And it's that attack where we now have outside the Smithsonian institutions signs saying, well, it's not accurate. Yet they don't have the moxie to tell us where it is inaccurate. And if we look at all the social science data, we have so much more work to be done. But when we have a gargantuan wall of prejudice that is happening from the highest levels with regard to messaging and Blackness, this is part of what one gets.

When the looting starts, the shooting starts. All those kinds of things. And we saw during that time, not only were there increases in crimes of violence against African Americans with respect to hate crimes, we also saw the N-word unleashed on social media along with allies and other types of manifestations of color.

Thank you for that. Any additional questions or comments? Okay. I want to thank this panel so very much, and looking forward to continuing to the dialogue, especially as we-- if we've survived this month, making sure that we think about new ideas for next year. Thank you very much to this panel.

Thank you to your wonderful staff.

Thank you so much for having us.

All right. Next, we'll bring up our second panel: Voices of Protected Classes. Come on up. NAACP, LULAC, Jewish California, Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, Asian Americans Advancing Justice, CARE and Equality California. I think we're just gonna take some turns here, so I'll just go by the list on my agenda. So first, we'll have NAACP. That's one chair. LULAC, Jewish California, and Coalition of Humane Immigrant Rights will be our first. But the others stay in the front row so you don't have to move around too much. And then we'll get to everyone else right after that. All right. Let's start off with California State Conference of the NAACP.

Good afternoon to Chair Jackson and members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity first to testify on behalf of the NAACP California State-Hawaii Conference. I am Dr. Johnathan Butler, the 1st Vice President appearing today before our president, Rick Callender, who is currently out of the country. Do I just--

Yep. Oh, no, no. Just go ahead and start.

Okay. Well, one of the things that we wanted to share as we have been informed is California's Black and brown communities are facing measurable, documented, and accelerated hate crimes, and we certainly have learned about the reported hate crimes, which has risen more than 50% from 2020 to 2024.

The Department of Justice 2025 released just last month-- has been stated that Black Californians remain the single most targeted racial and ethnic group with 508 documented anti-Black hate crime events in 2025, which really is roughly one out of four statewide. We also know that anti-hate Black crime numbers rose 2.8%, which we just heard, even as the hate crime overall declined 3.4%.

There's a report on the CA versus-- the CA versus Hate Hotline, which logged nearly 1,200 reports of hate crime against minority groups in 2024. What's most important, behind these numbers are actually real people, and I think one of the questions that was stated is, you know, what is it that we should do? The first thing in my estimation is to realize that these are people and to recognize the folks' humanity.

Few years ago before John Lewis passed away, I had a conversation with him, and I said, you know, how do we address some of the things that we are challenged by in our country? And he says, we need to see each other. And so behind these numbers are children who are unsafe at school, workers who are targeted at their jobs and in homes that are being vandalized, and then harass students across-- whether it's Los Angeles, the Bay Area where I'm from, Sacramento, and even Honolulu.

Second major concern of the NAACP is the long-term durability of the infrastructure responding to the crisis, and while we thank the legislation for fully supporting the Stop the Hate Program in 2026, this program has historically-- we've historically had to fight for renewal cycles, cycle after cycle.

And so we don't want this year's full funding to be treated as just this one-time point rather than, you know, making sure that we are able to have a sustainable funding cycle so that we can actually do the work that we're called to do. A third concern is about compounding effect of the federal rollbacks landing on top of the state-level hate incident.

So as I mentioned, Black Californians face 508 documented hate crimes in 2025 alongside the simultaneous elimination of the federal civil rights protections and employment, whether it be fair housing, education equity. And so when federal enforcement retreats, state and local mechanisms become the only line of defense left, especially for Black families. And then finally is underreporting is itself a major crisis because many do not trust that reporting will lead to any action or they fear retaliation.

And so we ask the formal reports represent only just a fraction, as has been mentioned, of what is actually occurring, meaning that any policy response built solely on what is only reported will understate, as we all know the true scale of the problem. So those are some of the points that the NAACP State wanted to make mention of today. Thank you.

Thank you. LULAC.

Hi. Good afternoon, Chair Jackson and members of the committee. My name is Irma Gonzalez, and I'm representing the League of United Latin American Citizens, LULAC, and it's the nation's oldest and largest Latino civil rights organization dedicated to advancing educational and economic opportunity, civic engagement, and equal justice for all. I'm also co-founder of the San Diego County Solidarity Network.

We appreciate the opportunity to join you and the other organizations representing our communities. Our histories may differ, but we share a fundamental belief. Hate directed at any community threatens all communities. Solidarity is our strongest defense. So one of the greatest issues, concerns that we hear from Latino community is fear--fear of discrimination because of our ethnicity, language, or perceived immigration status.

Even longtime residents and United States citizens experience bias simply because of how we look or where people assume we come from. Misinformation and hateful rhetoric deepens that fear. In our region, San Ysidro in Santa Clara County, the proposed Gilroy Detention Center has created significant anxiety and confusion. The uncertainty has fueled misinformation and amplified harmful narratives rooted in racism.

Families worry about what it means for their safety, their ability to live their daily lives without fear. We also know many victims of hate or discrimination never report what happened. Some fear retaliation. Some doubt they'll be believed. Others simply say they don't know where to turn.

When trust in institutions erode, the entire community suffers. So what do we need from our allies? The most important thing we can offer that I would ask for is solidarity. Hate rarely stays confined in one community. Allies can help by speaking out when hate occurs, challenging misinformation, supporting victims, and building relationships across communities before the crisis arises.

Solidarity is not just a response to a tragedy. It is a daily practice. The Legislature plays a critical role in creating an environment where every Californian feels safe and respected. We encourage continued investment in trusted community-based organizations that help families understand their rights and participate in civic life. Prevention efforts, including multilingual outreach, hate crime education, victim services, programs that promote cultural understanding are just as important as enforcement.

We also urge support for digital literacy and civic education, especially for our young people who are increasingly exposed to online extremists and misinformation. And lastly, trust is built through consistent collaboration among state agencies, educators, law enforcement, and community organizations. Our concern's about the current administration. LULAC's mission has always been rooted in civil rights rather than partisan politics. Our focus is not on political parties or individuals but on how policies and public rhetoric affect the people we serve.

Whenever policies or public discourse create fear within our communities, discourage victims from reporting crimes, separate families, or reduce trust between residents and public institutions, those are concerns for us because they have real-world consequences for public safety and civic participation. Today, we're joined by organizations representing many different communities and backgrounds. That sends an important message. We may have different histories, cultures, and experiences, but we are united by a common belief: every person deserves dignity, respect, and the opportunity to live free from discrimination and hate.

California's diversity is one of its greatest strengths. Our responsibility is to ensure that diversity continues to be a source of unity rather than division. LULAC remains committed to working to build a California where every person feels welcomed, protected, and empowered to participate fully in civic life. Chair Jackson and members of the committee, thank you for convening this important conversation. LULAC looks forward to continuing this work together.

Jewish California.

Thank you, Chair Jackson and members, and thank you to every organization on this panel. I am David Bocarsly, the CEO of Jewish California recently rebranded from JPAC, and we're a coalition of 43 Jewish organizations across the state and our communities' unified voice in Sacramento. I deeply appreciate hearings like this. Even if we don't agree on everything, being in community demonstrates a commitment to showing up for one another anyways.

That's so important for us, because since October 7th, 2023, our relationships have been fragmented. But this year, something has shifted. Some of those partnerships have deepened and some haven't, and I wanna share about both. I'll start, though, by setting the landscape. Jews are just 3% of the state's population and yet we are the second most targeted groups, victims of 15% of hate crimes according to the Attorney General data.

Fortunately, as we learned, the overall numbers are trending in the right direction. This most recent report shows a 7% dip in anti-Semitism from the previous years, but these numbers are still three and a half times what they were a decade ago. Over that same period in our schools, anti-Semitism is up more than sevenfold. And this past year, we saw a resurgence in hate-motivated violence against Jews in a way we haven't seen in a number of years.

You may remember the anti-Semitic attacks in Charlottesville, Pittsburgh, Poway, Muncie, and Jersey City in the late 2010s. We hoped that the worst was behind us, but in the past year or so, we've seen a resurgence of this horrific violence targeting Jews, including at a Jewish museum in D.C., a march in Boulder, and a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach in Sydney. In March, a man drove a truck rigged with explosives into a Michigan synagogue. And it doesn't stay contained to us.

When two teenagers opened fire at a mosque in San Diego, we grieved as neighbors because an attack on one community is an attack on all of us. This spring, our state's own official voter guide mailed to 23 million households carried a candidate statement that braided anti-Semitic conspiracy theories together with links to racist, anti-LGBTQ, and White nationalist hate, a reminder that our collective safety is truly intertwined.

I am a yamaka-wearing Jew and a new father, and I'd be lying if I told you that any of this sits easily in my mind most days. So many people in our community are feeling fear they never knew before. Being bullied at schools is one kind of heartbreak. Now, more than a quarter of Jews feel unsafe walking into our own community centers, and that fear gets used against us from both directions.

On one side, we have national leaders who are weaponizing anti-Semitism as cover to gut diversity programs, LGBTQ protections, and life-saving research funding. Do I have this right? Yep. But one in four Jewish households struggle to make ends meet, one in 20 of us are immigrants, and upwards of 15% of us are people of color. Nearly half of my coalition's member organizations are social service providers. You cut social safety net programs in the name of protecting Jews, and more often than not, you're hurting Jews too.

And on the other side, when people share real stories of discrimination, we're increasingly told it's a lie, a right-wing project, an excuse to chill speech. In other words, some people are abusing anti-Semitism to enact policies that harm Jews, then others argue that that proves Jews aren't being harmed at all. We're caught in the middle of both of these bad faith arguments.

This was perhaps most acute when a statewide union tried to get candidates to boycott our community from civic life, grouping Jewish California with the oil and tobacco industries as sectors that in their own words harm working people. Meanwhile, we're the ones advocating for bills and budget requests to backfill HR 1's cuts so the working people our agencies serve can keep providing for their families.

Then twice, lawmakers introduced bills sponsored by that same union to gut civil rights for Jewish students, laws that this Legislature had only just passed. Fortunately, both of those bills failed, and many of our human service priorities, like immigrant legal aid and food and healthcare benefits, were funded in the state budget. That's because the lawmakers in this building refused to let hate and division win.

And I wanna add one more piece here that I think is important: this fixation on demonizing Israel and using language like genocide and apartheid. Lawmakers and leaders are lobbied to use these very specific words, not as a policy critique but as a litmus test. It's asking you which side are you on as a way to undermine Israel's very legitimacy. To the activists, critiques are not enough. You have to use these words.

We're losing nuance and it has real implications, first because it cuts deep at the core of the four and five Jews who may not agree with Israeli government policies but simply believe that Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish and democratic state, and because it leads to violence. Those attacks of the 2010s I mentioned--inspired by White nationalism. The attacks of the past year, they were largely in the name of avenging Israel.

Think about that. Perhaps there's a way we can tone down the rhetoric or at least figure out a way to critique a complex international conflict in our own words without falling into a trap. I share this concern not because I think it's pervasive, but I do want to ensure that it isn't. And in fact, overall, our relationships are deepening, and that's the story I wanna leave you with because that's the hopeful half.

Last year, this Legislature passed AB 715, our K-12 anti-Semitism prevention bill, co-authored by chairs of diversity caucuses and earning 106 out of 120 votes across both Houses, firmly declaring that Jewish students matter too. This year, amidst rising intimidation at the entrance of houses of worship, we are standing next to Sikh, Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Black, and Armenian communities in sponsoring AB 2664, the Safe Worship Zone Act.

And just a few weeks ago, the state made nonprofit security map funding permanent at $80 million every single year, a generational win supported by a diverse coalition of Jewish, LGBTQ, interfaith, and interethnic groups pushing for it side by side. I think the challenge we continue to face, which underpins everything I've described, is that so many people just don't understand our community.

We're considered a religion, often flattened into a monolith, which foments misconceptions and bias. But we're a diverse people and ethnicity. In fact, most Jews cite culture and ancestry above religion as core to their Jewish identity. So we're working on a bill to ensure California's laws and data represent our complexity, to inform better research and policy, and simply to be seen a little more clearly. So here's what we're asking.

We are asking for you to support the bills that get this right, like SB 1387, so our state can finally recognize Jewish ethnicity and diversity, and AB 2664 establishing safe worship zones. Help us finish what AB 715 started. Now that a federal judge has thrown out the last legal challenge to the law, let's get the anti-Semitism and other hate prevention coordinators appointed and on the job. Let's try to tone down the rhetoric.

Talk to us before taking a position on Israel about how to provide thoughtful feedback without erasure. And when a colleague tries to gut a community's hard-won civil rights, push back the way so many of you did for us this year. I'm sure each of you on this panel are carrying some version of what I've described, your own kids' safety or fear that widened this year. We're not asking for special treatment. We're asking to be in this together so that whatever comes through one of us has to come through all of us. Thank you.

Thank you. Coalition of Humane Immigrant Rights.

Thank you, Chair Jackson and Assembly Member Lowenthal for the opportunity to testify today. My name is Monica Madrid. I'm the State Policy Advocate with the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, CHIRLA, and the greatest concern that our community is facing today is fear--fear of detention, fear of family separation, fear of racial profiling, and increasingly fear that an encounter with immigration enforcement could end in tragedy. In recent months, immigration enforcement--or sorry--immigration communities have witnessed heartbreaking incidents, including the deaths of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and Yohan Sebastián Durán Guerrero during ICE enforcement operations.

At the same time, we have seen more than 50 deaths in custody-- in ICE custody nationwide, including several deaths in California detention facilities such as Adelanto, California City, and Otay Mesa. These tragedies raise serious concerns about detention conditions, access to medical care, transparency, and accountability.

We are also concerned by instances where local law enforcement agencies have worked alongside federal immigration enforcement or responded to immigration-related demonstrations in a way that have affected peaceful protesters, legal observers, and journalists. When communities fear exercising their constitutional rights or speaking out against injustice, it undermines public trust and weakens our democracy.

These events send shock waves through immigrant communities. Parents fear they may not come home to their children. Workers are afraid to go to work. Families hesitate to report crimes, seek medical care, attend school events, or cooperate with law enforcement because they fear detention or retaliation. At CHIRLA, we believe every person deserves dignity with due process and humane treatment.

No family should have to wonder whether a loved one will survive an immigration encounter or return safely from civil immigration detention. We need allies to recognize that attacks on immigrant communities do not happen in isolation. Racism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, anti-Black racism, anti-Asian hate, anti-LGBTQ discrimination, and xenophobia are all interconnected. When one community is targeted, it threatens the rights and safety of all communities.

We ask our allies to continue speaking out against hate and misinformation, support organizations providing legal services and rapid response, and stand with immigrant communities when constitutional rights are threatened. We encourage allies, including labor unions, faith leaders, businesses, educators, healthcare providers, and local governments to advocate for policies that protect civil rights, promote transparency, and ensure that every Californian can safely access schools, healthcare-- schools, healthcare, the workplace, and a justice system regardless of immigration status.

Solidarity has always been our strongest response to hate. The Legislature has an important role to play in rebuilding trust with the immigrant communities. First, we urge the Legislature to pass SB 1105 by Senator Pérez. This bill strengthens accountability by addressing racial and identity profiling and increasing oversight of a collaboration between state and local law enforcement and federal agencies.

It helps ensure that constitutional rights are respected and that communities are not targeted because of who they are. We also urge the Legislature to pass SB 995 by Senator Pérez as well, the Masuma Khan Justice Act. Given the deaths that we have seen in immigration detention, including in facilities in Adelanto, California City, and Otay Mesa, California must strengthen oversight of immigration detention facilities, but SB 995 covers more than immigration detention facilities.

SB 995 would establish meaningful health and safety inspections, improve transparency, and create accountability to help ensure people held in civil immigration detention are treated humanely and that dangerous conditions do not go unaddressed. The Legislature should also continue investing in immigration legal services, Know Your Rights education, rapid response networks, and community-based organization that help families safely access public services.

Ultimately, the trust is earned through action. When California protects constitutional rights, promotes transparency, and holds institutions accountable, immigrant communities know that their dignity and safety matter. We are deeply concerned by the immigration enforcement policies and rhetoric that have created fear throughout our immigrant communities. The aggressive enforcement operations, increased use of detention, and policies that undermine due process have had devastating consequences for families across the country. Recent deaths in ICE operations and immigration detention only heightened those fears.

We're concerned when immigration enforcement actions discourage people from reporting crimes, seeking healthcare, and sending children to school, attending places of worship, or exercising their First Amendment rights. California has long demonstrated that public safety and civil rights go hand in hand. We encourage the Legislature to continue serving as a national leader by protecting constitutional rights, strengthening oversight, promoting transparency, and ensuring that every person is treated with dignity and humanity regardless of their immigration status. Thank you, and I look forward to answering questions.

Thank you very much. I'm gonna ask this group to take a seat in the front so we can bring up our other panelists for this segment. We'll start off with Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California, and then we'll go with the Council on American-Islamic Relations California, and then rounding up the California's Equality California.

Good afternoon. Good afternoon, Chair Jackson, members of the committee. My name is Dahni Tsuboi. I am the CEO for Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California. We are the nation's largest social justice organization of our kind focusing on serving Asian Americans--

First of all, thank you for today. Thank you for doing this. We are lucky to live in a state where this conversation is even possible, where the diversity gathered in this room is not a threat to be managed, but a strength that this committee has chosen to harness. So we appreciate that. Today, we're talking about hate.

But too often, we define hate by focusing only on the violent incidents that make the headlines. But hate really begins rarely begins with violence. Violence is simply the moment that we finally notice it. Hate takes another form quieter, but no less destructive. Community erasure.

And that's what I wanna talk about today. This is the gradual loss of a community's voice, history, safety, opportunities, and ultimately, sense of belonging. This isn't new for any of us in this room, certainly. And for us all, it is happening now again. We are witnessing the dismantling of the very systems that enabled our communities to be seen and thrive.

So while that plays out at the federal level, I wanna turn to what we can still control here at home in California, what we can do about it through five pillars. So first, the erasure of voice. We've talked about it a little bit today. Everyone's said something on that note. A community loses its voice when their stories are replaced by stereotypes or when they can't access information in their language.

In LA and Orange County, as an example, 70% of Asian Americans speak a language other than English at home. One third are limited English proficient, the highest rate of any racial group. That leads to underreporting. So some of the numbers that we hear today, I will tell you, may not represent the full picture. When you have people who can't speak the language, they won't call.

They won't report. Last March 2025, for the first time in our nation's history, the Federal Government declared an official language, English, and at the same time revoked the requirement that federally funded agencies provide translation and language access services. So the result, more confusion, more fear, less access, fewer people who can advocate for themselves. And all of that, as we've talked about today, compounded by disinformation that casts entire communities as threats.

So California has and can push back by expanding language access, protecting voting language assistance, supporting trusted ethnic media, especially at a time when our public, broadcasting and public journalism is losing funding and eroding and funding the disaggregated census data that our communities need to remain visible.

Two, erasure of history. All of us can relate to that. APIs help build this nation as all of us did in this room. Our history, though, has often been reduced to a footnote. Last March, the army removed from its website the four forty second, the most decorated for its unit for unit for its size in US military history composed largely of Japanese Americans who fought in the war while their families were being incarcerated by the government.

It was flagged as DEI content, restored only after a lot of public outcry alongside content that was taken down honoring Navajo code talkers, Jackie Robinson, and the Tuskegee Airmen, all removed in the same DEI sweep. That very same month last year, a federal order directed agencies to ensure that no monument reflects negatively on America's past, naming black history institutions explicitly, but also including other sites tied to communities of color and exclusion, such as the concentration camps for Japanese Americans.

This year, America marks our two hundred and fiftieth year. We should be clear who belongs in that story. The Chinese Exclusion act, the Japanese American incarceration, post nine eleven targeting of South Asian and Muslim communities, the COVID era scapegoating of APIs, these are not side notes.

They are American stories, American history. And when history is erased, lessons are lost, and that is what's happening. Schools, libraries, this whole book burning and banning is about erasing our erasing our history so people can forget. California must keep teaching accurate inclusive history, ensure our institutions honor, not delete the contributions from all of us that build this state and this nation. Civic literacy, I think somebody spoke about that, is what we need.

We talk about what's at the root of what's happening, this misinformation and miseducation. There are studies that show people who understand their government, civic literacy helps fight the manipulation that's been happening online in social media. Pillar three is the erasure of safety. Safety is not only the absence of violence. It's walking into a hospital or school or church without fear.

In January 2025, the Federal Government rescinded the policy that kept immigration enforcement out of those places. Schools, places of worship, hospitals, those doors are no longer protected. Our own staff at AJ SoCal sees this fear daily. It keeps clients from pursuing their legal remedies, from getting health care, from going to court appointments, from work, from school, and, of course, as we've talked about already, public rhetoric matters too. And when leaders describe immigrants as dangerous, that language travels into workplaces, classrooms, and neighborhoods.

Now many may believe that the anti Asian hate was a pandemic era phenomenon. The data says otherwise. Nearly half of API adults experienced an active hate in 2025. Half. And this is the third consecutive year at that rate.

So the headlines may have faded. The hate has not. California must protect trusted reporting pathways, due process, and keep that strong firewall between state services and federal immigration enforcement. Fourth is opportunity, the erasure of opportunity. The model minority myth tells us APIs don't need help.

Disaggregated data tells the truth. Our intake team has already fielded almost 16,000 calls so far this year. That already exceeds the total for all of last year, and we've got five months to go. Our communities are in need. In Orange County, for example, Asian Americans live in poverty at higher higher rates above the county average.

More than half of Asian American renters are housing cost burden, and for some in the API community, it's over 70%. And, of course, we know the con the crisis is compounding with HR 1. Won't go through all the details of the implications of HR 1, but 1 is that the humanitarian immigrants so these are lawfully present refugees, asylees, survivors of trafficking. They're gonna lose Medicaid funding and the covered California premium assistance because of this change in HR 1. Of those humanitarian immigrants, 70% are AAPI.

California should protect the organizations, like our all of ours that protect these communities. We on the ground. This is a crisis. We are your first responders in this room. We protect the communities.

We need support. We need to fund culturally and linguistically responsive services, make sure public resources reach the people that the model minority myth makes invisible. And finally, the erasure of belonging. I mean, this is really what the other four pillars ultimately thrive to protect. So when a community's voice is ignored, when the history is deleted, our safety undermined, when the opportunities are restricted, people receive a message.

You can live here. You can work here. You can even raise children here. You can even serve this country, but you do not fully belong. The opposite of erasure is not just visibility.

It's intentional belonging. Seeing yourself in public leadership, getting public information in your language, helping shape the policies that govern your life. So for this committee, every policy really should be judged by one question. Does this policy strengthen belonging, or does it deepen erasure? That question should guide everything.

In this unprecedented moment, this crisis because as we've all said, we are in a crisis. California can lead, not by responding to hate after the fact, but by preventing the conditions that let it grow. So protect voice, preserve history, strengthen safety, expand opportunity, and make sure that every Californian knows they belong. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Council on American Islamic Relations.

Good afternoon, doctor Jackson, members of the committee, Assemblymember Lowenthal. My name is Usama Mohaddim, and I currently serve as the legislative and government affairs director for the California chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations, otherwise known as CARE California. And I'd like to thank you on behalf of the organization for inviting us here today, for this very remarkable hearing, and to represent California's over 1,000,000 Muslims. Today's remarks revolve around some of the most concerning developments in relation to anti Muslim hate grounded in data.

And, let me begin in San Diego. On May 18, two attackers, as you all know, opened fire at the Islamic Center of San Diego, And that tragic act of terrorism at a house of worship and a school took the lives of three individuals, Amin Abdullah, Mansoor Khazija, and Nadir Hawad, three deeply beloved members of the San Diego community. Their courage helped protect more than a 100 children inside and prevented what could have been one of the most gruesome massacres at a school in recent history. And these are not hypothetical concerns.

Three men went to a place of worship and did not return home because they stood between armed attackers and children. And the data is clear.

We saw from the California DOJ report released last month that a cited 58% increase in end time Muslim hate crimes for 2025. CARE California's four offices separately received a 119 reports of hate crimes and hate incidents. And from May through July, publicly documented mosque incidents nearly tripled compared with the same period last year. And last month, a public death threat against our very own CEO, from a former FBI official, appeared on X. The harm also reaches beyond physical violence.

CARE received a record 8,683 civil rights complaints nationwide in 2025. And employment discrimination was the largest category for the second consecutive year. Here in California, we've represented workers disciplined for pro Palestinian expression, and this discrimination now reaches safety, livelihood, and speech. A community is not safe. If worshipers fear violence, employees fear retaliation, and advocates are treated as inherently suspicious.

That is not equal citizenship. So from allies, we're not looking for sympathy after a tragedy, but we're looking for solidarity before one. And that's something that I think echoes for every organization that is here today. The second is name anti Muslim and anti Palestinian racism clearly. We need to reject the false choice between combating antisemitism and protecting speech defending Palestinian human rights, which is being weaponized to tear our communities apart.

Stand with Muslim institutions when powerful officials smear them. And solidarity cannot depend on whether a community's voice is politically convenient at the time. California has historically led the nation on civil rights, and this is a moment to lead again. First, we'd like to ask the legislature to make safety funding fair and accessible. CARE California's review of the state's 2025 nonprofit security grant awards found that only about 6% of recipients were readily identifiable as Muslim serving.

This multi year pattern with low percentages in the preceding years deserves an independent equity review, clear selection criteria, and very importantly, stronger outreach as that's been seen as one of the main contributors to this low percentage, a meaningful appeal process, and rapid emergency support as we saw in May with the shooting at ICSD. Fairness is not taking protection from another community. It's making sure every community at risk can access it. Second, strengthen reporting and civil rights infrastructure.

We have the MENA Inclusion Act, which is still awaiting full implementation. We would like to ask the legislature to also fund culturally competent community based reporting and know your rights and anti hate education. And we talked a little bit earlier about the factors contributing to this hate, and a lack of education is one of those biggest contributors, especially the likes of Stop the Hate funding, which was just renewed.

And as my colleague from the NAACP mentioned earlier, something that we would benefit from having accessible and continuous renewal for, and fund organizations providing civil rights legal services and victim support. And in the education space, ensure that all communities are represented in our hate prevention in the educational system. We are still facing resistance in asking for an anti Muslim discrimination prevention deputy.

Not coordinator, deputy coordinator as the result of the legislation from last year with AB 715 and SB 48. That is something we would like to see considering the sharp rise in hate that the Muslim community in California is facing. And the state cannot see the harm it cannot address. A state that cannot see the harm cannot address that harm. Third, close the workplace protection gap.

Enforce robust protections against retaliation for religious expression and lawful political speech. People should not lose their livelihoods because their protected views on matters of international concern are unpopular. And fourth, protect California's community based organizations from political retaliation. Protect sensitive client and surveillance data from immigration enforcement or political profiling without judicial author authorization, and require evidence, notice, and due process before state grants are disrupted, and resource rapid challenges to unlawful federal overreach.

Thousands of the most vulnerable California families would bear the brunt of the harm if we let the thinly veiled anti Muslim and anti immigrant threats at the federal level take effect here in California.

I'd be remiss not to address the profound threats to civil rights posed by the Trump administration. And it's expanded across, you know, different sectors targeting Muslim majority in African countries using immigration and visa power against political speech and weakened federal civil rights enforcement. And now that machinery is being directed at California partners by name. Earlier this year, the Department of Health and Human Services sent governor Newsom a a letter attacking CARE California's work providing immigration legal services to recently arrived Afghans.

Secretary Robert F Kennedy junior amplified those claims just a couple months ago publicly without evidence of wrongdoing because there is none.

These state administered grants already undergo extensive fiscal, legal, and programmatic review, and this is nothing but an attempt by the Federal Government to dissolve the most credible and decades old institutions that provide a protective layer around our most vulnerable communities. California should defend the integrity of its own grant process, protect the nonprofits it has vetted, and refuse to let federal power be used to smear civil rights organizations or frighten the people they serve. So in closing, the data is clear.

The record 8,683 complaints documented by CARE are a measure of real harm to real people. Employees, students, families, worshipers, and advocates in communities like ours across California.

And we ask that this hearing be the beginning of a sustained legislative commitment, one backed by data, by resources, and by political courage. So I'd like to thank this committee again. Thank you.

Thank you. Equality California. Bring us home, baby.

Good afternoon, Chair Jackson, Assembly member Lowenthal. My name is Josh Wright. I am the legislative director of Equality California, the nation's largest statewide LGBTQ plus civil rights organization. For over twenty five years, we have partnered with this legislature to advance full lived equality for LGBTQ plus Californians. Our community continues to face attacks on our rights, safety, dignity, and this is especially true for transgender and gender nonconforming people.

According to the ACLU, there are more than 530 anti LGBTQ plus bills introduced across the country in 2026, including six here in California. This builds on attacks from previous years. 27 states now have enacted either total or partial bans on best practice medical care for transgender minors. 21 states now restrict trans people from using the bathroom that aligns with their identity.

19 states have at least one LGBTQ plus school censorship law, and more than a dozen states require schools to forcibly out trans use to families, which are not always safe.

While state legislatures are introducing bills to attack our rights, the judicial system is making decisions that fail to protect them. For example, this year, the Supreme Court ruled that state laws banning transgender girls and women from participation in sports does not violate their title nine rights. In Charles V Salazar, the court overturned a Colorado law banning conversion therapy, claiming that it violated a counselor's free speech rights. The Trump administration continues to use its power to harm and discriminate against LGBTQ plus people.

This includes hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts to LGBTQ plus health research, attempts to ban gender affirming care through federal funding, and eliminating hundreds of federal HIV research grants.

This past year alone, the administration stopped collecting 367 different measures of sexual orientation and gender identity. Two California hospitals were targeted by the Department of Justice, which sought detailed and personal medical data of trans patients. And the administration has repeatedly threatened to withhold funding from California schools in order to intimidate them into denying the existence of LGBTQ plus people and force them to out students in violation of California law. These actions paint a crystal clear picture.

There is a coordinated attempt to deny the existence of trans people and to take away the hard won victories that establish legal protection that have established legal protections for our community.

These attacks on our safety and well-being have very real consequences for LGBTQ plus people in California. In 2025, the LGBTQ plus community experienced over 1,000 documented instances of hate and harassment, a 5% increase in incidents from 2024. The UCLA's annual CHIS survey found that twenty six percent of transgender and gender expansive Californians have experienced a hate incident, which is three times the rate of cisgender respondents. Lesbian, gay, and bisexual Californians experience twice as many hate incidents as heterosexual Californians.

The Trevor Trevor Project's 2025 survey found that thirty six percent of LGBTQ plus youth ages 13 to 17 had been bullied online in the past year.

LGBTQ plus immigrants and asylum seekers fear having their families torn apart, as well as detention and deportation to places where their lives may be in danger. And these federal actions are having a direct impact on our state's ability to provide gender affirming care, to protect LGBTQ plus people's data privacy, and provide mental health support for our youth.

This year, Equality California is advancing a package of bills that protects the privacy and safety of our community and ensures that our state remains a safe haven for LGBTQ plus people from across the country.

These measures include bills to safeguard sensitive health care data and ensure that state departments do not disclose sexual orientation and gender identity data unnecessarily, ensure conversion therapy remains illegal in California despite the Supreme Court ruling, protect against discrimination in health care, provide security grants for pride events, and would restore the LGBTQ plus 988 crisis support dial 3 option. We are also grateful that the state budget included funding to ensure Medi Cal providers can continue delivering transgender health care, even if the federal funding is restricted.

But perhaps most critically, it's important that you continue to use the power of your voice as our state's leaders because policy alone cannot stop the normalization of hate.

We know that this legislature has long stood with LGBTQ plus Californians, And we ask for your continued leadership to protect the safety and dignity of our community, to ensure that resources reach those on the front lines, and to speak clearly against hate in all of its forms. We thank you so much for this continued commitment and for the opportunity to speak today.

Thank you very much. Before I do my closing comments, I wanna defer to Assemblymember Lowenthal for any of the comments or questions.

I appreciate you so much, Mister Chair, because first of all, this is it's meaningful to my family. It's meaningful to my community. It's meaningful to my values. And every one of you who presented today, I learned things and was reflective about the work that we need to do in the state of California. And I want to go back to actually, we've met on multiple occasions with the gentleman representing care.

Samah. Samah made a very profound statement, which is about solidarity before these events happen. And I want to, Mister Chair, go back to the question that I applied very when I first sat down in here, which was about what are the conditions that are contributing to the genesis of hate and are we studying them well enough? Are we are we collecting and synthesizing and regressing enough data to find the correlations?

Are we not just looking at ways to stop the bleeding in the policy that we have, but are willing to engage in investing in pilot programs and otherwise, where we're willing to measure things in the ten, fifteen, twenty year period of time because we all know this isn't going anywhere overnight.

And and what can we do that's actually meaningful and measurable over time? And that's what's getting at me because, you know, I see these systems in politics and Wall Street and otherwise where there is so much incentive for this hate to continue and to be regurgitated. And I see also sometimes we're at each other's throat on things and especially fighting over resources. I'm glad you pointed that out over nonprofit security grants. You know?

And that's not good either. And so I really want us to invest in that, invest in really trying to figure out where what you know, what can we do to stop these things so early? What, you know, what what what can we have done with those individuals that went to San Diego when they were younger and identified what was going on, you know, with them and the people that are influencing them in the communities and what what brought them to that. What are those conditions?

And with with with total respect to privacy and somehow preserving privacy as a inalienable human right, but to be able to assess and understand these conditions in a way that we could do that.

And then the other thing I think that we really have to do is we have to figure out how to engage our colleagues from across the aisle in this in this. And for those who are brave enough, because they're in a very tough political environment right now, to be standing up to this type of stuff. I mean, it's not it is not a party of free ideas right now.

And you give those with that courage some cover political cover in order to be able to be part of these conversations. So, you know, they can be meaningful, Mister Chair.

I I think you're absolutely right. The insanity that you and I are dealing with on these very simple bills about putting things forward on on hate that are in a front to to what is perceived to be speech or an attack on politics. And so we're not even we're not even talking to the other side of the others. No. They're they're they're not listening.

We're not listening. They're they're you know, there's we're in this really, really awful place where we're not able to have constructive conversation that that requires humility from everybody. And I also want to acknowledge CARE, Chirla in particular are definitely a quality. And every one of your organizations itself are under fire and itself taking hate.

Meeabant has built to protect the the folks over at at Chirla, you know, turned into this social media firestorm with Nick Shirley here that turned the capital upside down, which was really just about protecting the very advocates that are out there trying to keep people safe and connected to their community and to stop this cycle that's going on.

And, you know, so I just wanna express gratitude to you and to all your colleagues in your organizations and be thankful for, you know, on behalf of all my constituents and and the state of California itself for for the the unbelievable work that you do. And even when we disagree, you know, the respect is is unbelievable. So I just wanna say that so much. I gotta run to 04:00 meetings, so I gotta get out of here. So thank you all.

Thank you very much, assemblyman. And we wrote down some of those ideas as well. And, I I think that one of the things that we have been trying to do and we have been able to do, and, unfortunately, it was harder than it should have been in terms of continuing to stop the hate funding in in terms of making sure that we maintain what little infrastructure we've been able to create on the ground

with some real create on the ground with some real dollars to them. And it is our intention to continue that and making sure that it's a part of the very fabric of making sure that California, just like we have systemic racism, why don't we have systemic anti racism, systemic hate, anti hate, systemic anti xenophobia. That's the North Star. Now we're going to embed it in the very fabric of the policies, of the institutions, of the practices of the state of California in and of itself.

The reason why we always end our hearings with the voices of those who are always on the menu and then sometimes we add newcomers to newcomers to it.

But the idea is is that when we all tell our stories, they they all sound the same. And sometimes we think it's just us because we're all in our own community bubbles. But we're all experiencing the same thing, and most likely, it's from the very same people. Yeah. Right?

And so I think that the only way that we're gonna get through this, and most importantly, the only way that we're gonna make sure that we're setting up the next generation of our communities for success, is to make sure that we teach them what solidarity looks like.

And I think our greatest issue right now is is that we know how to talk about solidarity, but we have yet to practice solidarity together. Let's be honest. And I think at some point, like, trying to figure this out, and it's hard to do it when your own community is under attack to start thinking about, okay. Who else? Right?

Who else can I come to the aid for? It's it's hard to fight two fronts, but somehow we gotta figure out how to do it. Why? Because if it happens once, it can happen again. And not it can, but it will happen again.

The only question is, will we be prepared for it more than we were this time? And in the be in the past, we were all on the menu one at a time. What is new is we're all on the menu at the exact same time, right, which gives us an opportunity to build a new skill. Right? And to make sure that we're never talking about our own community without also lifting up what other communities are going through.

That's that's something you have to practice. And so the data is clear. This ain't gonna stop anytime soon. The only thing that's gonna change it is how we respond to it, how we get begin to make sure that we have lasting infrastructure to make sure that we can better deal with it and combat it in the future. And so the next time we see each other will probably be via Zoom to start talking about what does next year look like.

Because at some point, what I think real solidarity looks like is not that one organization comes up with a bill for their community, but all of us have a bill that we're all sponsors of. Right? That's what solidarity looks like.

And so that's where I'm gonna make a challenge for each of every one of us that we have we can find one or two bills that we all are sponsors of to making sure that we are advancing the dignity and humanity of all Californians and even future Californians together. So a lot to take in, a lot to continue to reflect on.

And and sometimes when I think about we think about planning these hearings, sometimes we'll say, will it even be relevant by the time we do it? And guess what? It never fails. It's relevant. Because one thing is for sure, it's coming.

Right? And so thank you very much for representing your communities and humanity very well today and for reminding us that sometimes the attacks look different, but there are still attacks. And it's gonna take all of us to do it. And we are beginning to see the institutionalizing of certain programs that were pilots at one point. We know we have a lot more work to do when it comes to that and the equitable distribution and things like I mean, it's all kind of sticky.

Right? Because they were all created during different circumstances for different communities. Right? And so we gotta still work through that, but it's gonna take us all coming together and saying, how do we make sure that it's done in a way in which everyone feel protected, seen, heard, and making sure that we all have opportunities to thrive here in California. So thank you very much.

I wanna thank, of course, you all have heard from Latifah, my staff, who has done an excellent job of putting this together. Wanna thank, also, as always, the sergeants and others. And at this time, before we adjourn, we will open up for public comment, as well.

And so if anyone would like to make any public comment, I ask that you please keep your comments to three to five minutes, and we are more than happy to hear your ideas, your concerns, or anything else you would like to share. So please just come up to the mic. Please introduce yourself, your name, and affiliation, please.

Hi. Cali for cali.com. I was the right a candidate for California governor. You had said something very interesting. What could bring us all together?

That flag. Those are the enemies, the Confederacy, the the ones who are against the rights. We have to claim that flag for us because that's what the that's we are the ones who advocate for democracy and fairness and equality. So let's reclaim that flag as our symbol. That'll bring us together.

What I love about this country is it gives you a fighting chance. For example, me, I am trying to start the process of suing the government for targeting me, but I'm doing it at the FBI Building with a little program that helps people who don't have the money for a lawyer. I'm coming here talking to you guys here in this building. What this what I love about this country, brother, is it gives you a fighting chance. Other countries don't give you that.

A lot of other countries don't give you that fighting chance. With a little bit of courage, dedication, discipline, there is a fighting chance in every corner in this country. So that's what I love about it. Thank you. Cali for cali.com. Check me out. Peace.

Alright. Anyone else have any other public comments at this time? Seeing none, again, thank you for all of you who have been who have participated. As always, this is yet just one more thing that we're going to do as we continue to work together. Stay tuned for the next opportunity to continue to plan and work on making sure that we continue to build an anti racist, anti hate, and anti xenophobic state.

At this time, we are now adjourned.