American Sikhs form the country's sixth-largest religious group. While the U.S. Census does not ask about religion, 70,697 Americans declared Sikh as their ethnicity in the 2020 census. The U.S. Census Bureau cites the 2008 American Religious Identification Survey's estimate of the adult Sikh American population at 78,000. The Pew Research Center estimated the Sikh American adult population to be 140,000 and the total population at 200,000 in 2012 while the World Religion Database at Boston University estimated the American Sikh population to be at 280,000 in 2012. Sikh organizations like the Sikh Coalition and American Sikh Congressional Caucus estimate the Sikh American population to be as high as 1,000,000, but do not provide any sources for these figures; 500,000 nevertheless remains the most cited Sikh American population size. With 1% of Asian Americans being Sikh, and 90.7% of Sikh Americans being Asian American, the American Sikh population can be estimated at around 200,000–300,000 in 2021. The largest Sikh populations in the U.S. are found in California (52%), New York (11%), and Washington (6%).

Bellingham is the county seat of Whatcom County in the U.S. state of Washington. It lies 21 miles (34 km) south of the U.S.–Canada border, between Vancouver, British Columbia, 52 miles (84 km) to the northwest and Seattle (90 miles to the south.