Amit Jani, a former New Jersey political operative and Murphy administration official, has become the acting White House liaison at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, according to a POLITCO West Wing Playbook report on Friday.
Jani left the New Jersey Department of Transportation, where he was legislatve liaison, in 2019 to become the National Asian American Pacific Islander director for Joe Biden’s presidential campaign. He had been director of the chief information officer action group at the Pentagon before taking the Homeland Security post.
The onetime Jersey City resident worked as an account executive at Vision Media Marketing, the political consulting firm run by Phil Swibinski. He started out as a youth organizer for 32BJ SEIU and served as an aide to Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-Long Branch) and as a member of the Hudson County Schools of Technology Board of Education.
In 2017, he was the director of Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Outreach for Phil Murphy’s gubernatorial campaign. He held the same post on U.S. Senator Bob Menendez’s re-election campaign in 2018.
Jani was the president and co-founder of the New Jersey Leadership Program, which exposes South Asian high school students to government and politics at the state and local level.
Read More: New Jerseyan Amit Jani takes key Homeland Security post