Brutal stabbing of Sikh trucker in Wyoming follows racist DHS attacks on immigrant truckers

20 September 2026facebook iconTractor trailers move along Interstate 5, headed north through Fife, Washington, near the Port of Tacoma, August 24, 2016. [AP Photo/Ted S. Warren]Early Sunday morning on September 13, a young truck driver was brutally assaulted and stabbed over a dozen times at a remote rest stop in Wyoming. The victim, Mr. Singh, is a 24-year-old man from Sacramento, California and a follower of Sikhism, a religion originating from India with around 30 million followers worldwide.

The assault occurred amid an escalating campaign by the Trump administration against immigrants and immigrant truck drivers, including a Department of Homeland Security social media post four days earlier that explicitly targeted people named Singh.

The driver who was attacked, Mr. Singh, is not releasing his first name out of fear of retaliation. The attack occurred at the Bitter Creek rest stop on Interstate 80 in Wyoming. According to an affidavit filed by Sweetwater County sheriff’s investigators, a family at the rest area heard screaming and grunting from the men’s restroom. They subsequently saw Singh and the alleged assailant, 44-year-old Andrew Kris Bzdak, emerge from the building.

The family witnessed Bzdak flee the scene in his tractor-trailer while Singh was left to bleed out. The family provided first aid, photographed Bzdak’s truck and contacted Wyoming State Patrol. Bzdak was arrested by troopers over an hour later in nearby Carbon County, Wyoming.

Bzdak, 44, is currently being held on a $1 million bond and faces one charge of attempted murder. Police and local authorities have yet to release a motive for the assault more than a week after the attack. “I don’t understand the reason why everyone wants to find a motive on this other than to satisfy their own political theories,” Sweetwater County Attorney Daniel Erramouspe (Republican) told WyoFile in an interview Friday.While the police have yet to release a motive, there is no question that the attack on Singh transpired under conditions where the Trump administration and Republican Party at large is routinely and regularly demonizing immigrants as “alien” threats and has singled out Sikh truck drivers in official government propaganda.The attack occurred four days after the Department of Homeland Security posted an image on X depicting a man facing Optimus Prime, the leader of the Autobots in the Transformers franchise. The poster included the slogans “Self-deport or find out,” “America for Americans” and “Get off our roads, you don’t know how to drive Mr. Singh.”

DHS accompanied the image with a video containing clips from the Transformers films and images of immigrants targeted by the agency. Among those named was Harjinder Singh, an Indian truck driver charged in connection with an August 2025 crash in Florida that killed three people. Singh has pleaded not guilty to three counts of vehicular homicide and three counts of manslaughter.

The Coalition of Hindus of North America posted a statement in response to the Optimus Prime DHS post that read in part: “Singling out SOME last names does nothing for safe streets, but it does endanger the safety of hundreds of thousands of Americans with names like Singh and Kumar. When an official US Government handle shows a brown person as “foreign” and “un-American,” it becomes open season to target Hindus and Indian Americans - including those who are legal residents and citizens.”On September 9, the Sikh Coalition posted in response to the Transformers post: “Twenty-five years after 9/11, Sikhs are *still* being targeted and profiled for how we look.“Millions of Sikhs in the United States have the last name Singh, which means lion. We remain fearless in identifying as Sikhs—even when our government portrays us as enemies.”

DHS has since taken down the post, but others attacking immigrants remain on the timeline.

This racist incitement is part of a coordinated federal campaign targeting immigrant truck drivers, commercial driving schools and state licensing systems.

According to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), more than 28,000 commercial drivers have been placed out of service for allegedly failing English-language proficiency inspections since June 2025. The Department of Transportation also claims it forced states to cancel more than 30,000 commercial driver’s licenses that had been “illegally issued to foreign drivers.”

The administration has simultaneously targeted the institutions that train commercial drivers. By the end of August, the Transportation Department claimed to have removed more than 8,000 training providers from the FMCSA registry. On August 31, it ordered the immediate removal of another 110 schools associated with more than 5,000 drivers who had subsequently failed English-language inspections. More than 160 additional schools received proposed-removal notices.

That same day, Homeland Security Investigations launched a synchronized operation against more than 200 driving schools in 23 states. DHS said the operation included ICE investigations of schools, trucking companies and commercial drivers, as well as inspection checkpoints and nationwide enforcement operations.

How does the targeting of Sikh and immigrant truckers by DHS connect to the broader buildup of ICE and the police state apparatus under both Democratic and Republican administrations?Ask more questions at SocialismAI.comHomeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin accompanied the crackdown with fascistic attacks targeting immigrant drivers. “Thanks to the recklessness of sanctuary politicians, there is a growing and alarming trend of illegal aliens being granted commercial driver’s licenses,” Mullin declared. “Many of them don’t speak English or understand the rules of the road, and yet they’re driving among us, endangering our loved ones.”

Mullin continued, “DHS and ICE are delivering on our mission to protect Americans by taking these dangerous threats OFF our roadways and getting them OUT of our country.” Fourteen days later, a Sikh truck driver was followed into a Wyoming restroom, beaten and stabbed.

Jasjit Singh, an attorney and director of legal services for Jakara Movement, a California-based organization that supports the Punjabi Sikh community, flew to the Wyoming Medical Center in Casper, to offer services and support to Mr. Singh following the assault.In an interview with WyoFile, Jasjit Singh said Mr. Singh is recovering well and that his spirits remain high. “There’s a concept in the Sikh faith of being in Chardikala- Chardikala refers to being in forever rising spirits, always trying to keep a positive outlook on life. And he had that, right, despite being stabbed 17 times and literally almost losing his life.”Jasjit noted that Mr. Singh, has been driving truck for nearly four years including through Wyoming regularly.“You know, someone asked him, ‘What do you think about Wyoming?’ And he’s like, ‘It’s a beautiful state,’ right? Beautiful place to drive through, calm, quiet. And it’s unfortunate that this is his experience right now.”The attack has provoked anxiety throughout the Sikh community, which numbers hundreds of thousands of adherents in the United States. While the majority followers of Sikhism religion reside in the state of Punjab in India, many have immigrated to Britain, Canada, the United States and other countries.Sikhs began immigrating to US in the 1800s with many settling California, working on railroads, farming and in lumber mills. In the 1980s following the massacre on Darbar Sahib in Amritsar, Punjab, carried out by the Indian Army, another wave of immigration from Punjab to the West Coast occurred with many finding jobs as truckers.According to industry figures and the Asian American Education Project, about 20 percent of the over 3.5 million truck drivers in the US are Sikh. By 2019, more than 30,000 Sikhs were employed in the trucking industry in California according to the North American Punjabi Trucking Association.Jasjit noted the recent racist posts by the Department of Homeland Security targeting immigrants, “And that was top of mind for our community,” he told WyoFile.“The day that post came out a lot of people were condemning it and doing other things. But the fear is no [amount] of condemning something like that is going to stop the damage from being done for someone who may use that as a green light to take things into their own hands for whatever purpose, and that’s kind of our fear for that“Everyone deserves to feel safe. I think the fact that this was an unprovoked attack is just a reminder of how dangerous things have gotten for folks as the rhetoric continues to grow,” Singh added.Following the racist Transformers post a smattering of Democratic politicians released statements denouncing the Trump administration’s attacks against immigrants, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Senator Adam Schiff, but none proposed any concrete measures to protect immigrants.Since Trump’s return to the White House, the Democrats have repeatedly accommodated and collaborated in the construction of the mass deportation apparatus and the emerging police state. Before the latest recess, 176 House Democrats joined Republicans in passing legislation funding federal agencies through December 11, ensuring that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) remain funded through the midterm elections.Truckers, regardless of their religion or immigration status, are under tremendous strain from skyrocketing diesel prices. The national average reached a record $6.285 a gallon during the week ending September 14, according to the US Energy Information Administration. In response to these costs and the escalating attacks on immigrant drivers, calls for truckers to park their vehicles on October 1 have begun circulating across social media.

The online calls follow a significant independent action last month by Mexican cross-border truck drivers against the Trump administration’s mass revocation of B-1 visas. Beginning September 3, hundreds of drivers used their tractor-trailers to blockade commercial ports of entry at Mexicali-Calexico and San Luis Río Colorado-Yuma.

Approximately 300 drivers participated at the Mexicali crossing and another 60 at San Luis Río Colorado. The action was organized by the drivers themselves through a WhatsApp group that quickly reached its maximum capacity of 1,024 members. Neither the trucking companies, the employer-controlled National Chamber of Freight Transport, the unions nor any political party organized the blockade.

The drivers ended the initial action after four days but warned that, unless the visa revocations stopped, they would return with a “much bigger” blockade encompassing Tijuana, Tecate, Mexicali, San Luis and Nogales. Their action demonstrated that truckers can organize a substantial cross-border stoppage independently of the official organizations that claim to represent them.

This points the way forward, the independent mobilization of the working class, is the only way to halt attacks on workers, including truckers, living standards, wages and safety.

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