In a bid to allay growing concerns within the community, the White House sent one of its top officials to a Gurdwara in the suburb of Washington, DC on Sunday to meet members of the Sikh community and local leadership to assure them about their safety and interest.
This is the first time that the National Security Council has held a meeting with these Sikh activists and Sikh separatists.
California is home to one of the largest Sikh populations in the United States, numbering more than 150,000 people, according to a Sikh organisation.
America's Transportation Security Administration officials have informed Sikh groups in the US that the community members should now expect turbans to always be searched at US airports, prompting angry reaction from Sikhs.
Over 50 people attended the 'Know Your Rights Forum' organised by the Sikh American Legal Defence and Education Fund on December 11 at the San Jose, California, gurdwara.
California Governor Jerry Brown signed AB 2845 also known as the "Safe Place to Learn Act," seeks to address bullying of South Asian, Muslim, and Sikh-American students.
Law enforcement officials from the US Department of Homeland Security have started visiting gurdwaras in New York and New Jersey to check for the presence of illegal immigrants, drawing a sharp reaction from some Sikh organisations which see such actions as a threat to the sanctity of their faith. The Trump administration has rescinded the Biden administration's guidelines that protected places of worship from immigration enforcement actions, leading to concerns that gurdwaras are being targeted. Sikh organisations argue that gurdwaras are not just places of worship but also vital community centres and that surveillance and raids by armed law enforcement would burden religious exercise and limit the ability of Sikhs to gather and associate with one another.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation along with the US Department of Justice has opened a civil rights investigation into the shooting of Deep Rai by a partially-masked gunman, who shouted "go back to your own country".
Bullying of Asian American students, including Sikhs, has nearly doubled in public schools in New York City, according to a report by two civil rights groups.
A gurdwara in California has been vandalised and the word "terrorist" scrawled on its walls in an apparent hate crime, days ahead of the first anniversary of the Oak Creek gurdwara shooting in Wisconsin.
Members of the United States Congress break bread to celebrate the contributions of Sikh Americans. Rediff.com's Aziz Haniffa reports
'Having a voice at the table means the other side has to show up to listen. It became clear that wouldn't happen,' says actor Maulik Pancholy, one of the 10 members who resigned from the US president's advisory commission on Asian Americans.
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