UNITED SIKHS

UNITED SIKHS is a non-profit humanitarian and civil rights organisation headquartered in New York. Its own site says it was founded in 1999 by a group of Sikhs in the New York metropolitan area to support newly arrived immigrant communities in Queens. It describes itself as UN-affiliated and says it is guided by seva (selfless service) and sarbat da bhala (the welfare of all). It lists chapters or registrations in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Ireland, India, Pakistan, Malaysia and Australia.

What it does

It runs legal and civil rights advocacy, disaster and humanitarian relief under the name Sikh AID, and UMEED, a helpline for reporting hate crimes and harassment.

Its part in this history

Afghan Sikhs. After the attack on Gurdwara Har Rai Sahib in Kabul on 25 March 2020, UNITED SIKHS says it helped local Sikh families prepare passport applications (87 families and close to 400 passports in the first phase), moved them to New Delhi, and ran a 24-hour helpdesk with medical care, refugee-card help and rations. In August 2021, as the Taliban took Kabul, it said more than 260 people, including over 50 children, were sheltering in Gurdwara Karte Parwan. It reported that it was in contact with the US, Canada, Pakistan and UK governments and with aid agencies about a rescue, and named the roughly ten-kilometre road to Kabul airport as the main obstacle.

The US Census. The US Census Bureau decided that the 2020 Census would code Sikhs as a separate ethnic group. UNITED SIKHS says this followed decades of advocacy, including meetings with the Bureau from 2010 and comments filed in the Federal Register.

Hate crime data. On 8 August 2025 it released "Counted but Not Seen". Citing FBI data for 2024, it reports 153 victims in 142 reported anti-Sikh hate crime incidents, which it says makes Sikh Americans the third most frequently targeted religious group. It argues that such cases are often misclassified or left out of federal databases, and urges agencies to improve how they track and categorise bias.

Key moments

• 1999: founded in the New York area.
• January 2020: Census coding for Sikhs announced.
• 25 March 2020: Kabul gurdwara attack, followed by relief work for Afghan Sikh and Hindu families.
• August 2021: appeals for the Sikhs sheltering at Gurdwara Karte Parwan.
• 8 August 2025: "Counted but Not Seen" released.

Where it stands today

UNITED SIKHS continues to run its UMEED helpline and Sikh AID work, and lists UMEED among its 2024 to 2026 projects.