Do voters react to policies targeting ethnic minorities? Governments in Western democracies have recently taken restrictive stances on migration and the integration of ethnic minorities. Face veil policies in particular are becoming increasingly common across Western democracies, with many countries adapting partial or full bans. While most research on the reactions to policies is focused on the consequences of intergroup contact, less is known about how voters react to these policies. In this study, we address this gap by assessing the effect of policies targeting ethnic minorities on outgroup hostility. In what we term policy cues, we argue these policies are means by which political actors define who is entitled to be a member of a polity. We test this argument by leveraging on Canton-level policies on face veils in Switzerland and study its impact on outgroup hostility, which we measure through hate crime, voting behaviour and political attitudes. Using a series of difference-in-differences designs, we find that these policies have important behavioural consequences for the integration of immigrants and those of ethnic and religious minorities. This study has implications for how policies impact the attitudes and behaviours of voters and the cohesiveness of multicultural societies.