Indian American Candidate for Fort Bend County Commissioner in Texas is the Target of ‘Hinduphobic’ Attacks
- Democrat Taral Patel, 29, says the “racist, anti-immigrant” comments from his Republican opponents come from “a place of deep and misguided fear.”
Indian American Taral Patel who is running for Fort Bend County Commissioner for Precinct 3 in Texas has been receiving hate-filled messages targeting his faith. In a statement released on Sept. 19, the 29-year-old policy expert noted that he is “always open to criticism,” of his “policy positions and stances on issues.” However, when his “Republican opponents decide to hurl racist, anti-immigrant, Hinduphobic, or otherwise disgusting insults at my family, faith community, colleagues, and me — that crosses a line.”
Noting that Fort Bend County’s “diversity has made us all stronger,” he said “the hateful images,” he’s been receiving, “are from a place of deep and misguided fear — incited by people like former President Donald Trump and today’s extremist Republican party fear that immigrants are ‘taking their jobs’ and setting out to hurt our own communities.”
He shared a collage of screenshots of hate-filled messages, on X, formerly Twitter. He was called “a foreigner,” who was “trying to take away people’s freedom and guns.” Some questioned if he was “even” born in America, while others said they support the current commissioner Andy Meyers, “because he is Christian while Patel and his followers worship monkeys and elephants.”
Patel was most recently appointed by President Biden to serve in the Office of White House Liaison to work on matters related to housing, urban development, and disaster recovery and resilience. During his time there, he was also a key member of the White House Asian American Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (WHAANHPI) Committee.
The young man previously served as the chief of staff for Fort Bend County, “overseeing an almost billion-dollar county budget, hundreds of millions in grants and Capital Improvement Projects, and more while building a focused team of staff members to ensure compliance, project completion, and constituent satisfaction,” according to his campaign website. He “additionally built key relationships locally, regionally, and nationally to execute a wide variety of projects,” and “coordinated the Census 2020 campaign placing Fort Bend as #1 in the State of Texas,” the website added. According to his campaign website, he has “helped lead Fort Bend county successfully through numerous flooding incidents, the Covid-19 pandemic, winter storm Uri and electric grid failure, droughts, and other major emergencies to emerge stronger and more united than ever before.”
Patel, whose parents immigrated to the U.S. from India in the 1980s, grew up in Greater Houston, studying at Cinco Ranch High School and graduating from the University of Texas at Austin in 2016. He has also worked for the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division in the Public Integrity Section, as the Deputy Finance Director for a Governor, and as a Legislative Staff member for the Texas House of Representatives focusing on the Transportation and Government Accountability and Transparency Committees.
However, Patel is not the first Indian American candidate to receive vitriol. Last October, three Indian Americans had their campaign signs vandalized, defaced and stolen. Judge Juli Mathew, running for re-election in County Court at Law No. 3, had her campaign signs stolen and vandalized, as did Fort Bend County Judge K.P. George and Surendran K. Pattel, a candidate for judge of the Texas 240th District Court. All three were elected unanimously in the November election. Sharing Patel’s tweet, and condemning the attacks on Patel, George wrote in X that there is “no room for hate” in the community.