Battle is going on between the executive and the judiciary in the US over the deportation of illegal immigrants. And the Trump administration has picked an India-born advocate to defend its use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport people who were staying illegally in the US.
Abhishek Kambli, an Indian-American lawyer at the US Department of Justice, is leading the Trump administration’s defence of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. Kambli argued that since the flights were already in international waters, they could not be called back. The judge found this argument unconvincing. Trump has criticised the judge as an unelected troublemaker and agitator. It was the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) which took the matter to court on March 15, an hour after Trump invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport five Venezuelan migrants. They were flown to El Salvador.
The spotlight is on Kambli as he defends the Trump administration in this case. But who is this Indian-origin lawyer? Born in India, Kambli moved to the US at the age of three and spent his childhood in Connecticut. He described his upbringing as working-class, saying his father ran a gas station while his mother worked in bank administration. He attended a small liberal arts school in Philadelphia before attempting a career in the entertainment industry. However, he later followed his father’s advice and pursued law.
Finally, I took my father’s advice and went to law school in Notre Dame… After that, I went to the military straight out of law school… I wanted to serve the country, which I felt had given me so much, he said. Kambli joined the US military as a Judge Advocate General, where he handled both prosecution and defence cases. It was during this time that he met his wife. However, due to constant relocations, he decided to leave the military and settle in Indianapolis as a federal prosecutor.
His family’s immigrant experience had a lasting impact on him, especially the struggles his father faced. His grandfather had died when his father was just two years old, leaving his grandmother with limited means to raise eight children. His career saw a steady rise. He worked as Assistant United States Attorney from 2019 to 2023, then became Deputy Attorney General for Special Litigation and Constitutional Issues for the next two years, before taking on the role of Deputy Associate Attorney General.
Kambli added the court lost jurisdiction the moment the planes left US airspace. When the judge asked if the planes could have returned to the US instead of continuing forward, Kambli responded, “That’s not the approach we’ve taken in this argument. The spotlight is on the Alien Enemies Act and thereby on the Indian-origin lawyer and his defence of the Trump administration could well help him “contribute to the nation which has given him so much”.