With new China travel restriction in place, Asian Americans urge nuanced caution

Following the Biden administration’s implementation of a new Covid-19-related travel requirement for passengers flying in from China, Asian American advocates and experts are urging caution and nuance amid years of heightened anti-Asian violence. 

Several Asian American organizations and leaders have expressed concern over the requirement of a pre-departure negative Covid test from those flying in from the country. The policy, implemented by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week, triggered fears that such rules could lead to racist fallout, particularly during a period of heightened anti-Asian and anti-Chinese sentiment. 

“What I would ask everyone to do is, again, be careful not to conflate the virus with an ethnicity or a group of people,” said John C. Yang, president and executive director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC. “When we have seen these types of policies, there are always those people on the fringe that will use it as an excuse to scapegoat our community as a whole or take it as a way of targeting a community.”