A 30-year-old Texas businessman, Daniel Keene, has been expelled from his church and gym and lost thousands in sales after his post criticising Indian immigrants and H-1B visas went viral, now deleted, triggering a storm of backlash across the US.
Keene, who runs Boundaries Coffee in suburban Dallas, shared a video in early September showing a local Ganesh Chaturthi procession, captioned: “We have to cancel the H-1Bs. I want my kids to grow up in America, not India.” The post, viewed millions of times before being deleted, was widely condemned as xenophobic and intolerant.
Church and gym cut ties after backlash
Following the uproar, Keene’s Baptist church elders reportedly urged him to apologise for what they called a “sinful act”. Instead, Keene doubled down, saying he stood by his views. According to Newsweek, his refusal led to his removal from The Trails Church in Celina.
He also lost his gym membership at CrossFit Prosper. Gym owner Ken Williams told Newsweek that the decision was “not political” but rooted in the gym’s core values of inclusion and respect. “We would take the same approach if it involved any other community,” Williams said.
Keene told Blaze News that he didn’t believe an apology was appropriate. “There’s no racial animosity in the post. It’s about policy, not people,” he said, insisting his objection was to “mass immigration changing community dynamics.”
Anti-Indian hate on the rise
Experts say Keene’s post reflects a worrying trend. A report by the Center for the Study of Organised Hate found that anti-Indian sentiment on social media surged in recent months, with nearly 190 million views across 381 hate posts in August alone.
The spike coincides with growing U.S.-India trade tensions and a wave of racially charged remarks abroad including UK MP Robert Jenrick calling Birmingham’s Indian-dominated Soho Road “a slum”.
While Keene remains defiant, the fallout from his post underscores a sharper reality, that America’s immigration debate is increasingly blurring the line between policy criticism and prejudice.
