Overview:

Hate incidents targeting South Asians surge online as anti-immigrant sentiment, anti-H1B rhetoric and federal policy changes impact the Sikh trucking community.

California’s Sikh trucking community faces ire

The TikTok video uploaded by Dave “Rana” Laut on April 29, 2025, begins with “Sat Sri Akal”, the traditional Sikh greeting, before continuing in Punjabi (translated): “Last night there was an executive order by the President that every commercial license holder has to be proficient in English. While this rule was in place, it will now be strictly enforced in all the states. I wanted to make all of you aware of this.”

Laut, who owns FBT Inc., a trucking company in Bakersfield in California’s Central Valley, the heartland of the state’s agricultural belt, is also President of the Bakersfield Trucking Association. 

Since 2024, Laut has been producing videos on his TikTok channel to educate the Sikh trucking community, especially its drivers, about recent DHS policy changes impacting their profession. Recent rules imposing more stringent English-language proficiency requirements have resulted in a spate of commercial driving licence (CDL) cancellations that have hit this Sikh community hard. 

Dave “Rana” Laut addressing his community on the new CDL updates via Tik Tok. Image composite IC staff.

Impacts of new executive orders

In 2025, two accidents involving semi-trucks driven by Sikh drivers in Florida and Los Angeles, which led to a legal dispute between the DHS and the state of California, gained significant national attention, leading to an unprecedented surge in racial bias against the Sikh trucking community, both online and in-person on the road.

The Sikh Coalition reported that eggs and water bottles were hurled at truck drivers who were also called racial slurs like ‘towel-heads.’

Since then, the administration has issued further executive orders barring non-domiciled individuals who do not have citizenship or permanent residency status from holding commercial driver’s licenses. These new regulations, which went into effect on March 6, 2026, target thousands of immigrant Sikh truck drivers, taking them off the roads, impacting their livelihoods, and the future of their families. 

Laut owns a fleet of 350 trucks and employs over 450 drivers in California, who transport agricultural produce from the Central Valley to the East Coast. At least 50% of his drivers reported experiencing some form of racial bias or hate incidents in the last few months, he said. 

“When they go to the scales, our drivers feel that based on their turban and skin color, they are subjected to extra scrutiny and get red-flagged very often. Earlier, we had no issues; people were very friendly, but now the drivers feel it on the road.” 

Mannirmal Kaur, Senior Federal Policy Manager of the Sikh Coalition, agrees. “Racial hatred against the Sikh community is now compounded with a new wave of bias-based, anti-immigrant sentiment, both in public discourse and from the highest levels of our government. This absolutely translates to a spike in hate violence that our community experiences.” 

FBI’s preliminary 2025 report on hate crimes 

A 2025 analysis by Asian Americans Advancing Justice of early FBI data shows that anti-Asian hate crimes have more than doubled compared to pre-pandemic levels. From 2013 to 2018, they recorded about 133 incidents per year, but in 2025, there were 318.

Hate crimes against Sikhs, Hindus, and Buddhists also rose to their highest levels ever recorded by the FBI. Sikhs remain the third most targeted religious group.

Kaur says the numbers are likely too low, “almost certainly a severe undercount,” because local police are not required to report hate crimes to the FBI. She adds that “hate incidents,” which are not tracked by law enforcement, are often more common than hate crimes. These are usually recorded by advocacy groups and support hotlines instead.

Surging online hate

Anti-immigrant sentiment and racial hatred against South Asians have burgeoned online, especially since 2024. Spikes in vitriolic comments and slurs have been recorded whenever people of South Asian origin are in the spotlight, for political or national events, such as the recent campaign of New York Mayor, Zohran Mamdani. 

A derogatory racial slur, targeting Hindus and Sikhs that frequently appears on online platforms and in far-right, anti-immigrant discourse, is “Pajeet.” The term is a contraction of the Punjabi term “Paaji,” a respectful honorific for an older brother, and the common Indian name suffix – “jit.” 

Manjusha Kulkarni, Executive Director of the AAPI Equity Alliance, says that fear about AI and job losses, combined with rhetoric about H1-B visas and skilled immigration, has renewed hostility towards South Asians. 

The AAPI Equity Alliance’s latest Stop AAPI hate report recorded deepening systemic discrimination nationwide, fueled by racism and xenophobia against AA/PI communities.

Hate incidents in California

In California, according to the 2024 report released by the Justice Department, hate crime events have increased by 141.7% between 2015 and 2024.

At least 31% of people who experienced hate in California did not report it to even a single person, even though the State of California, through the passage of the Asian and Pacific Islander Equity Budget of 2021, directed $ 110 million, with an additional $40 million allocated in 2023, towards combating hate.

H1-B becomes a racial epithet

There were 400+ social media posts with over 100 million views characterizing Indians as “job stealers,” “thieves,” and “fraudulent,”  says Kalpana Peddibotla, the Co-founder and Executive Director of the South Asian American Justice Collaborative (SAAJCO), quoting Stop AAPI Hate data.

Political rhetoric can normalize hate before it escalates into actual hate crimes or incidents, she added, emphasizing that the term H-1B is fast becoming a racial epithet for a brown person of South Asian origin.

A recent report from the Network Contagion Research Institute and the Frost Institute for Data Science and Computing, University of Miami, shows a sharp rise in anti-Indian hate online, especially in 2025. Its report, ‘From Policy Drift to Purity Grift: How a Small Network Hijacked the Immigration Debate,’ found that immigration debates and policy changes often triggered spikes in hostile posts, with criticism of policies quickly turning into attacks on Indians as a group.

Hate dynamics against faith

Hate dynamics now often combine anti-immigrant prejudice with anti- religious sentiments targeting South Asians of Hindu, Sikh, and Muslim faiths, say advocates.

“The anti-H1B and anti-immigrant sentiment that has flared up since December 2024 – people say that it is anti-Indian hate, but there is a very specific Hindu component to it as well,” says Pushpita Prasad, Chief Communications Officer of the Coalition of Hindus of North America (COHNA).

She referred to denigrating images of Hindu deities – Hanuman, Ganesha, and the Goddess Kali on Twitter, adding, “there is only one mainstream faith in the US today that worships idols, so let’s not pretend that this is anti-immigrant hate or racism. Let’s call it what it is.”  

Online anonymity empowers hate

People perpetrating hate on social media platforms feel “very empowered online because they often think that they are functioning anonymously,” says Dina Chehata, Civil Rights Managing Attorney for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). They “can covertly say things that they wouldn’t say” in person.

Referencing the various posts, Chehata pointed to dehumanizing instances of “go back” rhetoric in online hate. In February 2026, posts appeared on dozens of mosque websites telling people to “go back to …where you belong. We (CAIR-LA) were able to identify the profile as a white male and wrote to the Attorney General of California, Rob Bonta, to flag that incident as a serious risk and threat.” 

Since the war with Iran began, online threats against mosques and community centers have surged, says Chehata, referring to a thread of online comments in a specific post about a specific mosque and school in Southern California that used terms like “easy fix” accompanied by pictures of explosions. 

The ‘chilling effect’

A man speaking on video conference.
Kevin Kish, Director of the Civil Rights Department, California, speaking to India Currents via video conference. Image IC Staff.

Kevin Kish, Director of the Civil Rights Department of California, said that the department’s statewide randomized survey on hate incidents by UCLA through the CA vs Hate program revealed underreporting of hate incidents.

“In that survey, we saw that about 10% of Asian American Californians surveyed, including South Asians, reported experiencing an act of hate within one year. That translates to hundreds of thousands of people across the state. The vast majority of those people are not reporting to law enforcement, the Civil Rights Department, or “California vs. Hate.” That survey allowed us to get a sense of exactly how many people are experiencing things they aren’t talking about”, he said.

Many people do not report hate incidents because of several barriers that create a “chilling effect,” explained Kish. They worry about data usage – how their information might be used, struggle with language barriers when dealing with government agencies, and fear consequences tied to their immigration status. There is also a general mistrust of law enforcement, and some prefer to handle these experiences within their families or communities due to privacy concerns.

A mental health toll

Hate incidents are taking a collective mental health toll on individuals, families, and the community, says Kish, adding that the services most requested through the 211 Hotline of CA vs Hate were for counseling and mental health support. 

“We have connected people with over 100 types of services like legal aid, financial assistance, housing, but hate incidents have significant mental health impacts that people often don’t know how to access through their own communities,” Kish added. He encouraged Californians to actively report incidents of hate (not just hate crimes) to get the necessary support.

“The point of this hotline is that it doesn’t matter if what you experienced was a crime or a legal violation. People want access to services regardless of whether it’s a police matter. You don’t have to be a lawyer to call. If you perceive an incident was based on your identity—race, religion, gender, etc.—the hotline connects you with services”, Kish says.

While trucking associations and advocacy groups like the Sikh Coalition are pushing the federal government for more clarity on the new rules and regulations to prevent them from being weaponized against immigrant drivers, Laut is also encouraging his community of drivers to be better prepared. “Safety is first, always.” 

Resources from CA vs Hate

The following agencies provide support for hate crimes and hate incidents in California:

This article was produced as part of the American Community Media – CA vs Hate Fellowship.

Nandita Chowdhury Bose is Contributing Editor at India Currents. In Mumbai, she worked at India Today and Society magazines, besides other digital publications. In the United States, she has been a communications...