Fresno’s District 1 City Council race between Rob Fuentes and Naindeep Singh has raised a troubling question. Are Fresno progressives applying their standards consistently?

After Fresnoland reported on June 25 that Rob Fuentes had worked on ICE-related immigration cases, progressive activists called on him to leave the council race and resign as president of the State Center Community College District Board. Some questioned whether he had disclosed those cases to voters and fellow trustees. Others went further, calling him an ICE agent and circulating AI-generated images depicting him as an ICE agent in tactical gear and a MAGA hat. That portrayal was misleading. Fuentes was an assistant U.S. Attorney, not an ICE agent.

Fuentes said the ICE-related habeas matters were a small part of his caseload and were assigned after Trump took office. He argues that his legal work did not conflict with his campaign position because his duty as a federal attorney was to uphold the law and the Constitution. He told Fresnoland that, where detention lacked sufficient justification, he was “very clear” and “very forthright” with the court in helping it reach the lawful and constitutional result.

He has also said he remained in the office because he believed he could do more good from within and reduce harm where he could. Fuentes later made clear that he never handled deportation cases and never worked on family-separation cases. Fuentes resigned from his position on July 3. He told Fresnoland, “I was pushed out by the Trump administration for criticizing ICE publicly. I was placed on administrative leave literally one day after my criticisms of ICE were made public.”

Quitting his job after publicly criticizing ICE did not satisfy his progressive critics. As Fresnoland reported, one critic argued that Fuentes presented himself as an advocate for immigrant families while his courtroom work did not match that message, saying his “pretty words don’t stand up in a courtroom.” Progressive critics also questioned if he could be trusted to protect undocumented students and families. One progressive critic told me that even though he quit, he should have quit immediately when he was given ICE-related cases, so quitting his job was not enough.

So, I ask, why does accountability only matter for the candidate that progressives oppose?

What About Singh’s Support for Harmeet Dhillon?

The Fresno Bee recently reported that Singh had signed a letter to the U.S. Senate in support of Harmeet Dhillon, a Trump-supporting lawyer, to lead the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. Singh told the Bee that the Jakara Movement’s board of directors “sort of decided” to support the letter, and that he then put his name on it as part of a broader coalition. Though the letter was technically public, Singh did not disclose or explain his support for Dhillon to the voters or the public. It probably would never have come to light for voters if the articles hadn’t brought attention to Singh’s signature.

Dhillon’s record before her confirmation should already have disqualified her from leading the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. The ACLU identified her as a legal adviser to Trump’s 2020 campaign, a co-chair of Lawyers for Trump, and a leading figure in efforts to overturn the 2020 election. In my view, someone with that record had no business leading the division responsible for protecting civil rights.

What makes Singh’s endorsement of Dhillon even more troubling is what she did after becoming assistant attorney general for civil rights. Under her leadership, the Civil Rights Division was redirected toward Trump administration priorities including attacking DEI initiatives, targeting transgender-inclusive school policies, and labeling gender-identity instruction and student social transitions as “radical gender ideology.”

After ICE agent Jonathan Ross killed Renee Good in Minneapolis on January 7, Dhillon’s Civil Rights Division declined to open its own investigation into her death. The division normally plays a leading role in examining potential civil-rights violations by law-enforcement officers, including allegations of unlawful force. That choice was an abandonment of civil-rights oversight the division is supposed to provide. When an ICE agent kills a civilian, declining an investigation sends a dangerous message that federal officers are beyond civil rights oversight, which makes them seem above the law.

Dhillon’s division sent letters to election officials across the country warning of possible criminal prosecution if noncitizens were knowingly left on voter rolls or allowed to vote. Officials were given only five days to explain how they were preventing it. That is not protecting elections. It is fearmongering because it uses an extremely rare issue to intimidate election officials.

This month, Dhillon’s office accused Berkeley Law of illegally favoring Black applicants over similarly qualified white and Asian applicants. Dhillon declared that Berkeley Law had deliberately discriminated and “racially manipulate[d]” its student body. Her rhetoric pushes Trump’s agenda to portray DEI policies as discrimination against white and Asian students.

Singh Knew What Dhillon Stood For

Singh wholeheartedly put his name behind Dhillon’s confirmation for one of the most powerful civil-rights positions in the country. He may not have known exactly how far she would go once she got the job, but he knew who she was and what she stood for. He chose to endorse a Trump lawyer who defended Trump’s election lies and helped try to overturn the 2020 election.

The glaring discrepancy in this saga is how the progressive community’s rigid standards for Fuentes have flown out the window for Singh. Their silence is deafening.

The progressives should be calling for Singh to leave the city council race and resign from his position as a Central Unified trustee because his endorsement of Dhillon contradicts his so-called progressive ideals such as his stance against ICE, his support for equity, and his attacks on Fuentes. Fuentes’s work was actually related to his job, whereas Singh’s support for Dhillon came from his role as director of the Jakara Movement.

This is problematic for Singh because he is part of a board that supported Dhillon, and he showed that he cannot take a hard stance on his own. His signature was his choice, and he chose a lawyer for Trump.

Singh Tried to Keep His Support of Dhillon Quiet

What is even more problematic is the progressives’ silence regarding Singh not disclosing this support until it was brought up in the news recently. GV Wire reported that the Young Dems said that Singh “declined to disclose any of this to the Democratic clubs and committees whose endorsements he sought.” Had this bombshell not been dropped, most of us would not have known that Singh supported Harmeet Dhillon.

Singh recently pointed out in a Fresno Bee article how his views on ICE were different from Fuentes’s. “I think the bigger question is more about integrity, and when do you share your work? What type of work do you do? I think that’s actually the biggest difference.” But Singh’s signature on a letter supporting Dhillon’s confirmation and failure to publicly address it until it became a campaign issue raise serious questions about his own integrity.

When I was in the Tower District recently, I saw a lot of flyers with a milk carton portraying Fuentes as missing. He was depicted as an actual ICE agent with a MAGA hat. This deceptive depiction reminds me of MAGA tactics that demonize their opponents with AI-generated caricatures.

If progressives want to claim Fuentes is an actual ICE agent, then why are they letting Singh off the hook for supporting an ICE-enabling lawyer for Trump? Why is his lack of disclosure not grounds for him being asked to resign from the Central Unified School Board?

Progressives Fail to Ask the Right Questions

There are many questions that the progressive community is not asking. They have not taken a hard stance against Singh’s endorsement of Dhillon. They could easily withdraw their support for Singh, as they should. The San Joaquin Valley Sun reported that the Young Dems and the Fresno State Bulldog Democrats called on Singh to withdraw from the race over his endorsement of Dhillon. The Central Valley Progressive PAC and Fresno Resistance could easily do the same as well as other progressive groups. Not only does it seem like the progressive community is losing its way, it is showing unwavering support for someone who did something unacceptable and inexcusable. If they can maintain support for Singh after he turned his back on progressive ideals and did not disclose that, then they are not much different from the Trump supporters who refuse to end their support for Trump after the unacceptable things he has done.

No one is perfect, but imperfection is not the issue. A moral compass should steer anyone who claims to be progressive away from endorsing someone like Harmeet Dhillon. Fresno’s progressive community must decide whether it stands for accountability across the board or only when accountability can be weaponized against political opponents.

Progressives who excuse Singh’s endorsement of Dhillon are doing what they criticize Trump supporters for doing: protecting their preferred candidate after he did something that goes completely against what progressives stand for. Singh supported a lawyer for Trump who is anti-civil rights and anti-DEI. He has been eerily quiet on that.

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