Texas Republican faces bipartisan backlash over post targeting South Asian students

A Republican candidate in Texas has faced widespread criticism after describing a photograph of South Asian students celebrating a University of Texas football victory as a “problem”, prompting politicians from both major parties to condemn his remarks as racist and xenophobic.

Bo French, the Republican nominee for Texas Railroad Commissioner, shared an image of students cheering the Texas Longhorns’ victory and claimed it demonstrated “how many Americans have been displaced by foreigners”.

In a separate post featuring the same photograph, French suggested that the racial composition of the university’s graduating class was a cause for alarm. French has previously called for the deportation of 100 million immigrants.

Republican Senator John Cornyn denounced the post and urged other elected members of his party to respond.

“Are other Republican elected officials going to condemn the intolerance and racism, or look the other way while it becomes normalised?” Cornyn wrote on X, warning that such conduct could prove destructive for the party.

Cornyn, a four-term senator and co-chair of the US Senate India Caucus, lost this year’s Republican Senate primary to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

James Talarico, the Democratic candidate contesting the Senate election against Paxton, thanked Cornyn for speaking out and challenged the attorney general to condemn French’s remarks.

Several Republican members of the Texas House also criticised the post. State representative Lacey Hull urged French to delete it, saying she saw university students and fellow Texans celebrating their team.

Another state representative, Jared Patterson, described the remarks as racist and said they demeaned students because of their race or ethnicity.

The controversy comes as immigration and demographic change emerge as prominent electoral issues in Texas. The state is home to an estimated 1.9 million Asian Americans, including more than 450,000 Indian Americans.

Indian-American organisations also called on political leaders to reject French’s rhetoric. The Hindu American Foundation warned of rising hostility towards Indian and Hindu communities and said such language must be removed from political discourse.

Democratic Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi described French’s comments as xenophobic and part of a wider increase in attacks against South Asian Americans.

“These young people were cheering for their university, and he chose to demonise them based solely on how they look,” Krishnamoorthi said, adding that South Asian Americans were as American as anyone else.

The Indian American Advocacy Council also condemned the post, saying French had assumed the students were foreigners merely because they were brown.

French, however, received support from some Republicans. Former Texas Republican Party chairman Matt Rinaldi criticised Cornyn and other party members, accusing them of sacrificing future generations in pursuit of government benefits and cheap labour.

With IANS inputs