In the year since the 2016 presidential election, one in five perpetrators of hate violence in the United States against various South Asian and Middle Eastern communities invoked President Donald Trump’s name, his administration’s policies or his campaign slogan during the attacks, a new report found.

The nonprofit group South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT) released the report last week, which detailed increasing instances of hate violence and xenophobic political rhetoric from Election Day 2016 to Election Day 2017. The group documented more than 300 reported incidents targeting South Asian, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, Middle Eastern and Arab communities during that period.

“It’s heartbreaking.” Suman Raghunathan, executive director of SAALT, told HuffPost. “When you have people literally saying or leveraging the ‘Make America Great Again’ campaign slogan as they are violently assaulting our community members ― that for me draws a direct connection in a way that could not be clearer.”

SAALT documented 213 incidents of hate violence ― a more than 45 percent increase compared to the year leading up to the 2016 presidential election. The levels of violence mirror those seen the year after the 9/11 attacks, with 82 percent of the hate violence and xenophobic political rhetoric now motivated by Islamophobia, the group said.

Women who identify or are perceived as South Asian, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, Middle Eastern or Arab represented 28 percent of the documented hate violence, the report noted. Sixty-three percent of the women targeted wore a hijab or head scarves.

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