The Department of Homeland Security took down a social media post featuring an image of a Stockton Sikh man following heavy criticism that it promoted anti-Sikh sentiment.
The seemingly AI-generated post, which went up on Wednesday as part of the agency’s latest self-deportation push, depicted a bearded man in a blue bandana opposite the popular “Transformers ” character, Optimus Prime, branded with a DHS seal. Below the two figures, text resembling the credits of a film poster reads “Get off our roads you don’t know how to drive Mr. Singh.”
The blue bandana resembles one worn by Harjinder Singh, a Stockton-based truck driver accused of causing a deadly Florida crash after making an illegal U-turn. Three people in a minivan died when Singh’s 18-wheeler collided with them. Singh pleaded not guilty to several counts of vehicular homicide and manslaughter.
DHS confirmed to the New York Times that the post depicted Singh, who is Sikh.
Published just days before the annual commemoration of 9/11 — when hate crimes against Sikhs surged after the terrorist attacks — the post reflected what the Sikh Coalition, a national Sikh civil rights organization, called continued discrimination and profiling based on their appearance.
“Twenty-five years after 9/11, Sikhs are still being targeted and profiled for how we look. Millions of Sikhs in the United States have the last name Singh, which means lion,” said the organization. “We remain fearless in identifying as Sikhs — even when our government portrays us as enemies.”
The post was taken down by the next morning.
But another post, uploaded around the same time, adds to the administration’s campaign against immigrant truck drivers. Using clips from the “Transformers” franchise, the video includes images of three drivers, including Singh, who were involved in fatal crashes. Text in the video later reads, “aliens don’t belong behind the wheel of American trucks on American roads.”
In a statement to Stocktonia, an unnamed DHS spokesperson called the criticism of the post “faux outrage,” adding that “Harjinder Singh is an illegal alien from India who should never have been in our country.”
The department did not respond to Stocktonia’s questions about why the post had been removed or who had approved it.
California leaders have since publicly condemned the post online. According to the Sikh Coalition, about 250,000 Sikhs live in California — roughly half of the Sikh population in the United States.
Gov. Gavin Newsom called the post “disgusting” and “racist propaganda” from the Trump administration that targeted the Sikh community.
Rep. Josh Harder, who represents San Joaquin County, where the country’s first Sikh gurdwara was established, said pulling the posts “is not enough.”
“No one deserves to be targeted by Washington politicians because of their faith or name,” Harder said. “Whoever allowed this to happen should be fired.”
Tejpaul Singh Bainiwal, historian and board member of the city’s historic Gurdwara Sahib, said he initially thought the post was fake. Once he realized the post did come from the federal agency, he wasn’t surprised, adding that its message is clear to Sikh people: ‘‘You’re not welcome here.”
“(Singh) was used as a political football,” said Singh Bainiwal in a call with Stocktonia Thursday. “Now, they’re reusing his image to really incite hatred towards the community.”
It’s why Singh Bainiwal believes broader education about Sikh history and life is needed, as seen in the San Joaquin County Historical Museum’s exhibit “The Sikhs in America: Faith, Resilience, and Power.”
“How do we really collectively come together to resist against this stuff?” asked Singh Bainiwal. “(It’s) the reason why we have the exhibit, for when people are just throwing shameless stuff out there.”