DHS's 'Mr. Singh' Deportation Ad Draws Fire From Hindu and Sikh Groups, Investigation Calls Follow

What DHS Posted

On Tuesday, September 9, 2026, the Department of Homeland Security's official X account published an AI-generated graphic styled as a movie poster, "Transformers: Age of Deportations." It shows Optimus Prime, wearing a DHS arm patch, confronting a bearded man in a bandana identified only as "Mr. Singh." The tagline: "America for Americans. Get off our roads. You don't know how to drive, Mr. Singh." A companion line urged people to "self-deport or find out," according to Gulf News and the Times of India.

DHS also posted a short AI video featuring Megatron, the franchise's villain, negotiating the release of five named truck drivers: Harjinder Singh, Rajinder Kumar, Bekzhan Beishekeev, Akhror Bozorov and Jasveer Singh. NDTV and ABP Live report these men were involved in road accidents and other crimes. The department's post read: "If you approach this nation with hostile intent, know this. We will defend ourselves. We will defend Americanism. We will defend our home," and included a tip line, 866-347-2423, for reporting "illegal aliens on American roads."

The Backlash

The Hindu American Foundation called the post "racist, un-American, anti-Indian profiling/trolling" and said it "should shock our nation's collective conscience," tagging Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon and FBI Director Kash Patel and asking for an investigation, according to the Times of India and Hindustan Times. The foundation also called on Paramount Pictures, which distributes the Transformers franchise, to weigh in.

The Sikh Coalition said Sikhs continue to face profiling based on appearance "twenty-five years" after 9/11, per NDTV. Alec Nolan, a Sikh-American anchor at Fox 7 Austin, posted that his grandfather, Dan Singh, and great-grandfather, Katha Singh, immigrated from India, worked as raisin farmers and truck drivers, and that the ad was "racist and demeaning to anyone with the last name Singh," a post cited by Gulf News, Times Now and Hindustan Times.

Critics point out that Singh is a surname carried by millions of Sikhs and Hindus who are American citizens, not just the handful of drivers named in the video. As Hindustan Times and NDTV both note, the poster's language does not distinguish between the drivers accused of crimes and the surname itself.

The Safety Argument DHS Is Making

DHS ties the campaign to a real enforcement push. Hindustan Times reports the administration has canceled roughly 28,000 immigrant truckers' commercial driver's licenses, tightened CDL eligibility rules, and paused certain work permits following a string of crashes in which undocumented drivers, some from India, were behind the wheel. That crackdown is a legitimate policy response to documented licensing fraud and fatal accidents, and the five drivers named in the DHS video are tied to specific incidents, not invented for the ad.

The strongest case for the campaign is that DHS is targeting people who allegedly obtained commercial licenses illegally and caused real harm on American roads, and the video names five specific individuals rather than a class of people. The problem critics raise is that the poster's headline message, "Get off our roads, you don't know how to drive, Mr. Singh," is addressed to a generic surname, not to the five named individuals, which transformed a driver-safety message into what the Hindu American Foundation calls ethnic profiling.

NDTV also flagged an irony in the ad's own logic: the DHS-branded robot meant to represent American authority, Optimus Prime, is itself an alien in Transformers canon. That is commentary rather than reporting, and readers should treat it as such.

What's Unresolved

No investigation into the poster has been announced by the FBI, the Justice Department, or any other federal body as of this writing, despite the Hindu American Foundation's public request to Kash Patel and Harmeet Dhillon. DHS has not issued a statement responding to the profiling accusations or clarifying whether the "Mr. Singh" reference was meant to name a specific person, and none of the reporting indicates the agency has taken the post down.

Whether the ad stays up, whether DHS revises or explains the messaging, and whether Paramount Pictures responds to the Hindu American Foundation's request over its Transformers branding are the open questions heading into the next stretch of the administration's self-deportation push. The program continues to offer voluntary departure through the CBP Home program along with a reported $2,600 exit bonus and travel assistance, according to Times Now.