Far right activists trouble Indian migrants in the United States

Last month, FBI Director in the USA Kash Patel wished his followers on X a happy Diwali. It did not go over well, reports CNN.

Indian immigrants are a significant demographic in the USA, with a large portion being legally established in high-skilled professions, while the number of undocumented immigrants is also rising, reaching an estimated 725,000, as per the Pew Research Center. The increase in undocumented immigrants is partly due to a rise in illegal border crossings, leading to a surge in asylum requests from Indian nationals, notes the BBC. Key states with the largest populations of both documented and undocumented immigrants from India include California, Texas, New Jersey, New York and Illinois.
Far-right Christian nationalist and white nationalist accounts flooded his post with bigoted memes and rhetoric. “Go back home and worship your sand demons,” a far-right pastor wrote. “Get the f**k out of my country,” read another reply. Said another, “This is America. We don’t do this.” These responses, some of which were seen millions of times, were on the tamer end of the spectrum. Such swearings can’t be endorsed.

Similar hostility followed Diwali greetings on X from former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon, as well as posts about the holiday from the White House, the State Department, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

Some Indian American conservatives seem shocked that segments of the political right are now taking aim at them. When Democrats won big on election night, Ramaswamy advised Republicans to “cut out the identity politics,” saying “we don’t care about the color of your skin or your religion. We care about the content of your character.” After one X user said that the existence of Indians disgusted them, Dinesh D’Souza, the right-wing commentator who has peddled racism against Black Americans for decades, mused: “In a career spanning 40 years, I have never encountered this type of rhetoric. The Right never used to talk like this. So who on our side has legitimized this type of vile degradation?”

This type of degrading rhetoric is not new, but it’s increasingly prominent from the political right. With the rise of once-fringe figures, and with President Donald Trump aggressively cracking dow

n on nearly every type of immigration, some members of the MAGA coalition are openly suggesting that only white Christians belong in America.
“The call is coming from inside the house,” said Siddharth Venkataramakrishnan, an editorial manager and analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue who has examined anti-Indian hate speech and the far right online.