To investigate the effects of long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) HHIP-AS1 on the proliferation and migration of tongue squamous cell carcinoma cells and its molecular mechanism, the expression of HHIP-AS1 in tongue squamous cell carcinoma tissues was analyzed by cBioPortal database. The expression of HHIP-AS1 in tongue squamous cell carcinoma cells was detected by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR). HHIP-AS1 plasmid and control plasmid were transfected into CAL-27 cells, which were recorded as HHIP-AS1 group and NC group, respectively. qPCR was used to detect the expression of HHIP-AS1 in CAL-27 cells in each group. Cell counting kit-8 (CCK-8) method and scratch healing assay were used to detect the effects of up-regulating HHIP-AS1 on the proliferation and migration of CAL-27 cells, respectively. Western blot was used to detect the effects of up-regulating HHIP-AS1 on the expression of proliferation phenotype proteins and migration phenotype proteins in CAL-27 cells. Dual luciferase reporter assay was used to verify the targeting relationship between HHIP-AS1 and miR-19a-3p. qPCR was used to detect the effect of upregulating HHIP-AS1 on the expression of miR-19a-3p. The results showed that the expression of HHIP-AS1 in tongue squamous cell carcinoma cell lines was lower than that in human normal oral keratinocytes (HOK cells) (all P<0.05). The expression of HHIP-AS1 in CAL-27 cells of the HHIP-AS1 group was significantly higher than that in the NC group (P<0.01). This study found that upregulating HHIP-AS1 could significantly inhibit the proliferation ability (P<0.05) and migration ability (P<0.01) of CAL-27 cells. Upregulating HHIP-AS1 would inhibit the expression of proteins related to the proliferative phenotype and migratory phenotype of CAL-27 cells. This study further found that HHIP-AS1 could bind to miR-19a-3p in a targeted manner (P<0.01), and upregulating HHIP-AS1 would inhibit the expression of miR-19a-3p (P<0.01). In conclusion, HHIP-AS1 is lowly expressed in tongue squamous cell carcinoma. Upregulating HHIP-AS1 inhibits the proliferation and migration of tongue squamous cell carcinoma cells by reducing the expression of miR-19a-3p. This study may provide a new target for the research on targeted therapy of tongue squamous cell carcinoma.