Shutong Hao came to the US because she needed a new heart. When she was five years old, her family travelled from China to Los Angeles for a life-saving transplant. They later built a life in the suburbs north of Dallas, but Hao was often made to feel as if she didn’t belong.
“I had multiple teachers who overlooked me, I think deliberately,” said Hao, now 29. “I really had to seek out and carve out spaces where I feel like I belong, because I never really got that as a kid.”
Those feelings of isolation worsened a couple of years ago, when she heard that Texas legislators were trying to pass a law that would ban Chinese nationals from buying property in the state. To Hao, it was a glaring sign that many people don’t want her to live in the place she’s called home nearly her entire life.
Now, after an initial bill failed to pass in 2023, it has come to pass: Senate Bill 17 prohibits many people and businesses from China, Iran, Russia and North Korea from buying most types of real estate in Texas, is now law.
Republicans have cast the law as a defense of national security. “There are people that are agents of those countries and they are buying up some of our strategic assets,” said the bill’s author, the Republican senator Lois Kolkhorst, despite evidence to the contrary.
Foreign nationals from those four countries must now have lawful status and reside in the US to qualify for limited exemptions, such as purchasing a primary residence. This means that many people who have lived, worked and contributed to the US for decades without becoming permanent residents or citizens may be effectively barred from property ownership in Texas.
“It was devastating,” Hao said. “Hearing about that bill was kind of the first time, in my adulthood at least, that I saw targeted legislation or targeted policy against my family, the backstory of which is very history-heavy.”
Some of that history is quite recent. In 2023, the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, then a White House hopeful, signed a law that bars Chinese nationals who aren’t US citizens or lawful permanent residents from purchasing property anywhere in the state.
“He tried to use ‘tough on China’ as a selling point,” said Clay Zhu, an attorney and managing partner at the Chinese American Legal Defense Alliance (Calda). “Now Texas is following suit.”
Zhu also points out that China was one of the key villains singled out by Project 2025, and notes that the CIA, the FBI and other state and federal agencies already have vast reserves of funding available for investigating legitimate national security threats.
“Texas already has tools to protect public safety while upholding an individual’s right to basic needs and a fair legal process,” said Sarah Cruz, an immigrants’ rights specialist with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), in a statement. “Instead of fanning the flames of anti-immigrant hate, Texas politicians should focus on funding our public schools and increasing access to health care.”
Attempts to restrict Asian property ownership in the US reach back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when racist policies such as the alien land laws barred Asian immigrants from owning land or leasing it long term. The laws were eventually declared unconstitutional.
Justin Sadowsky, one of Zhu’s Calda colleagues, sees echoes of the alien land laws in the new law. He is representing Peng Wang and Qinlin Li, two Chinese nationals living in Texas, who are arguing in court that Senate Bill 17 is discriminatory and unconstitutional because it restricts property ownership based on national origin, and because it may conflict with the federal government’s authority over foreign investment.
The law is vague, they say, and it effectively prevents property ownership for people like themselves.
“It’ll be interesting to see how the case plays out, because it seems like it contradicts the Fair Housing Act,” said Andrew Clark, a veteran real estate agent in Texas. “When you’re studying for your license, the Fair Housing Act is pounded into you, and rightfully so – you shouldn’t be able to discriminate against anyone, whether they’re buying or selling.”
Sadowsky said the widespread fear and uncertainty caused by the law are intentional political tools used by the legislature, not accidental side effects. Just as DeSantis was eager to establish his “tough on China” bona fides, Sadowsky argues, Texas legislators are in a battle to see who can establish themselves as the most aggressively conservative.
“Modern conservatism under Trump seems to be defined by who you are against,” he said. “Whether that’s immigrants or the LGBTQ community or liberals or Chinese people or Muslims. You have to be aggressively against it. You can’t allow somebody else to come up and say: ‘That person’s soft on hating these people.’”
Hate is top of mind for Hao, too. She saw first-hand the surge in anti-Asian racism created by the Covid-19 pandemic, when the coronavirus was dubbed “the China virus” by Trump and prominent Republicans. At one point, while travelling from Dallas to Austin to bring their daughter some protective equipment, Hao’s parents were accosted at a gas station by a man threatening them with a piece of broken glass.
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In the second Trump presidency, anti-Asian hate is on the rise once again; one study suggests incidents of Anti-Asian hate crimes are almost three times higher than pre-pandemic averages.
“In the pandemic, racism escalated into action and vandalizing Asian-owned storefronts and restaurants,” Hao said. “And now that’s escalating into policy.”
Hao said she lives with a “low hum of fear” in the back of her head that has been growing louder, particularly as recent Ice raids have targeted Asian Americans. Averie Bishop of Asian Texans for Justice says this targeting needs far more attention.
“We’ve seen families disrupted and community members taken without warning, often for decades-old offenses or paperwork issues,” she said.
“Many of those affected have lived in the US nearly their entire lives. To protect Asian communities, we need more inclusive immigration reform, stronger due-process protections and broader public recognition that the Asian American experience is deeply tied to the immigrant story.”
Meanwhile, the fear of persecution shapes how Hao moves through the world.
“I feel I have to be extra polite and more friendly to justify my existence here,” Hao said. “Because maybe a person interacting with me doesn’t think I deserve to exist in my home.”
