Picture this: you’re a Chinese-speaking immigrant in the United States, trying to figure out how to vote, whether your status puts you at risk, or simply what’s true in a chaotic election season. Instead of reliable answers, you scroll through social media and see warnings that immigrants are being arrested at polling places, that your name might be on a voter roll without your consent, and that the government is secretly tracking anyone who dares to participate. That’s the reality for many Chinese-speaking voters this election cycle, according to community advocates who track disinformation targeting their communities. And it’s not just an annoyance—it’s keeping eligible citizens away from the polls. Jinxia Niu, who leads digital engagement and information integrity work at Chinese for Affirmative Action, a San Francisco-based civil rights group, put it bluntly: “When it comes to the immigrant community, it’s really under the ICE shadow.” That shadow, she explained, turns ordinary political falsehoods into something far more terrifying: the fear that voting could cost you your family, your freedom, or your place in America. “It really turns this disinformation into immigration fear,” Niu said. “We can already sense it has been keeping eligible citizens home, too.”
The problem has been brewing for years, but the platforms and tactics are shifting. For a long time, WeChat—the Chinese super-app that is central to daily life for many Chinese speakers worldwide—was the main breeding ground for election falsehoods aimed at Chinese-speaking Americans. But now, Niu says, X (formerly Twitter) has become the dominant hub, especially for right-wing and pro-Trump content. WeChat is increasingly censored, which pushes the most extreme material elsewhere, and X offers a wide-open space where fact-checking is scarce and engagement is high. Niu’s organization runs PiYaoBa, which means “Let’s fact-check it” in Mandarin—the first Chinese-language fact-checking website in the U.S. Since 2022, PiYaoBa has tracked more than 600 pieces of disinformation, many of them drawing hundreds of thousands of views. This year, election fraud is the biggest theme. One striking example came after President Trump gave a July speech claiming that China had acquired 220 million U.S. voter files. There was no evidence that any votes were changed, and U.S. intelligence later found no foreign interference in the technical side of the 2020 election. But on X, pro-Trump influencers with large Chinese-speaking followings amplified the claim and added a sinister twist: mainstream outlets like CNN and NBC were hiding the truth because they were part of the fraud. For someone who doesn’t read English-language news, that can be convincing. “If you don’t check English-language news, you just start believing this,” Niu said. The disinformation doesn’t just stay on X—it gets translated, repackaged, and circulated through WeChat groups and YouTube, making its way into the private spaces where people trust what they see. Around 60 percent of Chinese-language disinformation is translated directly from English-language right-wing sources, but it often gets twisted or blended with new local claims once it reaches Chinese-speaking audiences, making it even harder to untangle.
The second big theme is noncitizen voting—a false and deeply frightening claim for immigrant communities. Niu explained that these claims exploit a cultural difference: in China, identification is required for almost everything, so immigrants assume that America’s decentralized, state-by-state voting rules must be sloppy and vulnerable. That’s why the myth that “voting doesn’t check ID” and “anyone can vote” keeps resurfacing every election cycle. This year, a real event in New Jersey gave those claims new life. In July, Governor Phil Murphy and then-Rep. Mikie Sherrill acknowledged that a software error in the state’s Motor Vehicle Commission system had mistakenly registered about 6,600 people who had identified themselves as noncitizens over a roughly one-year period. Fewer than 400 of them actually voted, and officials found no evidence that any election was affected. But for Chinese-speaking immigrants, the news was terrifying. In WeChat groups and on Xiaohongshu (RedNote), international students, H-1B visa holders, and green card holders began asking desperate questions: Could a mistaken registration get me deported? Could I be arrested for something I didn’t do? Could this happen in California? Niu said her organization heard from people genuinely afraid of losing their immigration status over an error they had nothing to do with. That fear is powerful, and it doesn’t stay contained. Niu also noted that her group found similar anti-immigrant narratives circulating in Indian, Filipino, and Vietnamese communities as well. To understand the scope, CAA plans to release a report called “Divided by Design,” which examines disinformation across the four largest Asian American communities. The pattern is clear: immigrant communities are being deliberately targeted not just with lies, but with lies that weaponize their deepest anxieties about belonging and safety.
The third major theme is partisan attacks, especially against the Democratic Party. Niu compared a 2022 bilingual flyer urging Chinese-speaking voters to support Republicans with newer 2026 versions that use almost the exact same talking points. The difference? “In 2026, the flyers are generated by AI,” she said. That means they can be produced faster, in more languages, and tailored to specific communities with almost no effort. AI is supercharging the disinformation ecosystem in other ways, too. Outlets like The Epoch Times—which Niu described as anti-CCP and pro-Trump—continue to expand their reach, while community members increasingly ask ChatGPT questions instead of reading the news. Niu pointed out a troubling pattern: Google’s AI Mode, when used in Chinese, tends to surface content from The Epoch Times, giving users a very different answer than they would get searching in English. “So the big question is: Who can hold AI companies accountable?” she said. It’s a question with no easy answer. Meanwhile, traditional Chinese-language ethnic media is declining, leaving a vacuum that partisan influencers and AI-generated content are happy to fill. Niu’s group has identified more than 150 disinformation social media accounts, mostly anti-Democratic or right-wing. Even seemingly positive news can be weaponized: she cited a recent Trump promise of $5,000 payments to adult citizens if Republicans keep control of Congress—a plan that would cost more than $1 trillion. That promise has been translated and targeted directly at Chinese-speaking voters, making it sound like an easy win rather than a highly uncertain political proposal. In a community where many people already feel disconnected from mainstream American political discourse, these targeted messages can feel like the only ones speaking directly to them.
Who is most vulnerable to all this? Niu’s research found that young people are generally better at spotting disinformation, while older adults in immigrant communities are significantly more at risk. But here’s the surprising part: education level doesn’t protect you. Niu emphasized that many highly educated, first-generation immigrants—people with PhDs in tech, mathematics, and physics—also fall for disinformation because they spend so much time on social media and have almost no training in digital media literacy. “It’s not taken for granted if you have a PhD, you know how to discern truth on social media,” she said. “We have lots of community members. They have all the PhDs from tech, from mathematics, physics, and they still believe in disinformation because they have zero training on that.” This is a crucial insight: intelligence and expertise in one field don’t automatically translate into the ability to recognize manipulated images, fake news stories, or AI-generated propaganda. In fact, sophisticated people may be even more confident in their ability to spot lies, which makes them more vulnerable to cleverly crafted content that confirms their existing beliefs. The emotional pull is also stronger for older immigrants, many of whom came to the U.S. with hopes for a better life and now feel uncertain about their place in a country that seems increasingly hostile to newcomers. Disinformation feeds on that uncertainty, offering simple explanations and urgent warnings that are hard to shake once they’re internalized. Niu’s advice is to rely on trusted messengers—community leaders, friends, and family members—rather than trying to debunk every single lie. “Fear is really just our human instinct,” she said. “Start with someone in your network you are already familiar with, you already trust, then gradually expand that trust network bigger and bigger.”
This doesn’t mean there’s no hope. The work that Niu and her colleagues are doing—through PiYaoBa, Justice Patch, WeChat public accounts, and partnerships with organizers in other immigrant communities—is a reminder that resilience is possible. Fact-checking websites in multiple languages, trusted community messengers, and responsible media coverage can all help counter the flood of disinformation. But the pressure is on. As AI makes it easier to create convincing lies, as platforms like X continue to deprioritize fact-checking, and as mainstream ethnic media shrinks, the burden falls on all of us to build trust networks that can withstand the assault. The stakes are enormous: eligible voters deciding to stay home, immigrants living in fear of their own government, and democracy itself weakened by lies that target the most vulnerable among us. The story being told to Chinese-speaking voters is not just about politics—it’s about identity, safety, and belonging. And the answer has to be equally personal. It has to come from friends, family, community leaders, and credible local organizations that show up consistently, answer questions patiently, and refuse to let fear be the loudest voice. As Niu said, fear is human instinct, but trust is a choice—and it’s a choice that can be nurtured, expanded, and made stronger. In the end, the fight against disinformation isn’t just about correcting falsehoods. It’s about helping people feel seen, supported, and safe enough to exercise their rights. That’s work that can’t be done by a single website or a single fact-check. It takes a community, patiently building trust one conversation at a time. And in a world where disinformation is only getting more sophisticated, that may be the most important fact of all.