Chandigarh-born Dhillon, a farm agitation votary, in Team Trump

US President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Chandigarh-born Indian-American Harmeet K Dhillon as the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the Department of Justice.

Top justice dept job

• Trump has picked Harmeet Dhillon as Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the Department of Justice
• She is first Sikh and the third of Indian descent in the new team that takes over on Jan 20

Dhillon, 54, has been critical of India, especially over the alleged plot to assassinate Khalistani terrorist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun and the action against farmers during their 2020-21 agitation at the borders of the national capital.

During the police crackdown on the protesting farmers at Singhu and Ghazipur borders, Dhillon had urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to “hear them, meet with them and compromise”.

After the US Department of Justice indicted Indian nationals for facilitating the alleged attempt to kill Pannun, Dhillon had posted on X: “India’s American death squad indictment. America’s Sikhs want answers: who else at risk, and what is US government doing about assassination attempts on US citizens?”

In the Pannun case, the Joe Biden administration has charged Indian citizen and former official of the external intelligence wing R&AW Vikas Yadav of hatching a plot to kill Pannun, chief of the banned Sikhs for Justice (SFJ).

In a social media post, Trump wrote: “I am pleased to nominate Harmeet K Dhillon as Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the US Department of Justice.”

Dhillon is the first Sikh to be nominated by Trump and the third of Indian descent — after Vivek Ramaswamy and Kashyap ‘Kash’ Patel — who will join the new team when it takes over on January 20 next year. Her father Tejpal Dhillon, a doctor at the Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGI), Chandigarh, migrated to the US when she was a child in the early 1970s.

Dhillon uses her Punjabi identity on the social media — her handle on X is ‘@pnjaban’. In July, she had recited ‘ardas’ (a Sikh prayer) at the Republican National Convention, where Trump was in attendance.

Dhillon, an attorney, has made headlines for her legal battles against big tech companies, her defence of religious freedom during the COVID-19 pandemic, and her challenges to corporate policies she deems discriminatory, Trump added. She has represented clients in election and campaign law matters, including compliance, ballot description contests, and intellectual property disputes related to campaign communications.