Indian American lawmakers slam DHS 'Mr Singh' post

Washington, Sep 15 (IANS) Five Indian American lawmakers have urged President Donald Trump to act over a deleted Department of Homeland Security post depicting a man called “Mr. Singh”, warning that it could encourage racial profiling and hostility towards Sikh and South Asian Americans.

Representatives Raja Krishnamoorthi, Shri Thanedar, Suhas Subramanyam, Pramila Jayapal and Ami Bera, all Democrats, raised their concerns in a September 15 letter to Trump. They accused the agency of using Sikh identity to portray a dangerous and unwanted foreigner while promoting immigration enforcement.

According to the letter, the post depicted a brown, bearded man identified as “Mr. Singh”. It told him to “get off our roads” and warned him to “self-deport or find out”.

The lawmakers said the name Singh was closely associated with Sikh identity. Its use in this context was degrading, they argued.

“We write to express grave concern about the increasingly open racial and xenophobic hostility directed at South Asian Americans, particularly Sikh Americans, and about the ways federal rhetoric surrounding immigration and visa policy can reinforce the idea that these communities are suspect, disposable, or less American,” they wrote.

The letter also questioned how DHS promoted a new Immigration and Customs Enforcement tipline. The lawmakers said the agency had formally described it as a mechanism for reporting suspected commercial driving licence fraud.

Its social media messaging, however, urged people to report “illegal aliens on American roads”, they said.

Paired with the depiction of “Mr. Singh”, that language could encourage people to treat perceived ethnicity, religion or foreignness as grounds for suspicion, the lawmakers warned. They said the campaign created a risk of racial profiling affecting Sikh, South Asian and other nonwhite drivers, including US citizens.

The supplied material did not include a response from DHS or the White House to the letter.

The lawmakers cited findings from Stop AAPI Hate to support their concerns. Anti-South Asian slurs in online spaces monitored by the organisation increased 109 per cent between January 2023 and December 2025, according to the letter.

South Asians were the targets of 71 per cent of anti-Asian online threats of violence identified between August 2024 and December 2025 in those spaces, it said.

The letter also cited a nationally representative survey in which 48 per cent of South Asian adults reported experiencing a hate act because of their race, ethnicity or nationality in 2025.

The lawmakers asked Trump to direct federal agencies, particularly DHS, to publicly acknowledge the harm they said the post had caused. They sought enforceable standards prohibiting agency communications that use racial, ethnic, religious or national-origin stereotypes.

They also urged Trump to make clear that immigration enforcement must never be used to stigmatise South Asian communities.

“South Asian Americans are not abstractions in an immigration debate, nor are they convenient symbols of foreignness. They belong in the communities they have helped build. For millions, this is their country and their home. There should be no room for such hate in our country,” they wrote.

The letter placed the dispute against a wider backdrop of hostility in Frisco, Texas. It cited references to an “Indian takeover”, “invaders” and “anchor babies” at city council meetings, and a mayoral candidate describing South Asian immigrants as “rats”. It also recalled a June incident in which a demonstrator tore an Indian flag outside City Hall.

Sikh articles of faith, including turbans and unshorn hair, can make religious identity immediately visible. The letter noted that Sikh Americans have repeatedly faced harassment, discrimination and violence from people who perceive them as foreign or threatening.

--IANS

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