The Department of Homeland Security on Thursday took down an official X post that cast a Sikh-coded “Mr. Singh” against Transformers-style imagery and told him to get off American roads and self-deport, after Sikh and Indian American groups and Democratic officials condemned the graphic as racist profiling.

According to India-West and India Today, DHS posted the AI-generated campaign art on Sept. 9 as part of a crackdown messaging push against undocumented commercial drivers. One graphic showed a brown-skinned, bearded man in a head covering facing Optimus Prime branded with DHS insignia; copy told “Mr. Singh” he did not know how to drive and urged “self-deport or find out.” Related posts and video leaned on Megatron imagery and named truck drivers DHS said were in the country illegally, including Harjinder Singh, whom authorities tied to a fatal Florida crash last year that killed three people.

DHS initially defended the messaging as targeting that individual case and illegal commercial driving. Critics said the government had turned a surname shared by hundreds of thousands of Americans into a villain brand. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) warned that demonizing “Singh” fuels xenophobia toward Sikh families. The Sikh Coalition tied the graphic to decades of post-9/11 profiling. California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office called it “racist propaganda,” India Today reported; DHS hit back by accusing Newsom’s state of issuing commercial licenses to illegal immigrants.

By Thursday afternoon the “Mr. Singh” graphic was gone from DHS’s account, India-West reported. Advocacy groups including the Hindu American Foundation welcomed the deletion but said removal was only a first step after a federal agency used a racialized caricature for political messaging. The episode sits alongside DHS’s CBP Home self-deportation pitch, which India Today said can include travel help and an exit bonus of about $2,600.

Governments that want safer roads can prosecute dangerous drivers by name and charge. What they should not do is turn a common Sikh and Indian surname into meme-war content with borrowed IP aesthetics. That is not border enforcement — it is the state picking a cultural target and hoping the algorithm does the rest. Pulling the post after the backlash does not erase that the agency thought it was a good idea in the first place.

Sources