Trump ally Harmeet Dhillon quits as US civil rights chief after midterm poll defeat
New York: The resignation of Harmeet Kaur Dhillon, the Civil Rights Chief in President Donald Trump’s administration, was announced on Thursday, making it the first departure of a senior official after the Republican Party’s defeat in the US midterm elections.
The Chandigarh-born Dhillon, who was the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, told Fox News that she had resigned last month ahead of the midterms, but Trump’s Chief of Staff Susie Wiles told her to stay on till the election was over.
Announcing her departure, Attorney General Todd Blanche on social media platform X on Thursday said, “She (Harmeet Kaur Dhillon) has defended the civil liberties of every American and enforced the law without fear or favour.”
“The Department is grateful for her dedicated public service, and we wish her every success in her future endeavors,” he added.
It is usual for senior US officials to leave after the midterms to allow the President to reconfigure his administration.
Although a staunch ally of Trump, she dissented with some of his allies over making Sikh truck drivers stereotypes of illegal migrants.
After a Sikh driver was involved in a fatal truck crash, Harmeet Kaur Dhillon on social media platform X in August said, “Unfortunately, in the fog of outrage, some are using these tragedies as an opportunity to attack law-abiding Sikhs and Indian-origin drivers, simply because of who they are.”
“Many of these law-abiding Sikhs and Indian-origin Americans are hard-working and patriotic. Most were born here or immigrated here lawfully,” she added.
The Department of Homeland Security posted an announcement with the image of a turbaned Sikh a month later with the caption, “America for Americans. Get off our roads; you don’t know how to drive Mr Singh.”
It was taken down after protests.
In the heat of the midterms, she sent out more than a thousand election monitors to polling stations across the country, unusual for its scale, and causing unease in Democratic-run states.
During her controversial 18-month tenure, Dhillon turned the focus of the agency away from discrimination against groups like non-White minorities that the division had traditionally supported and from what she considered “woke” — or progressive — causes.
It caused an upheaval in the division that was known for ensuring that African-American and other minorities were able to vote freely, and a majority of its lawyers quit.
She put the priority on cases like anti-Semitism, gun rights, religious liberty, especially what was described as “anti‑Christian” bias, and transgender participation in women’s sports.
As a legal adviser on the Trump 2020 campaign, she questioned the legality of former President Joe Biden’s election and alleged there were irregularities in the polling.
Dhillon delivered the Sikh prayer Ardas at the 2024 Republican National Convention.
She immigrated as a child with her family first to Britain and then to the US.