ARIF ALIKHAN

• Former deputy mayor of Homeland Security and Public Safety for the City of Los Angeles
• Was responsible for derailing the LAPD's plan to monitor activities within the Los Angeles Muslim community
• Was appointed as assistant secretary for the Office of Policy Development in Barack Obama’s Department of Homeland Security in 2009
• Became a Professor of Homeland Security and Counterterrorism in 2010

Arif Alikhan is a Sunni Muslim born in Canada in 1968. Raised in California by Indian and Pakistani parents, he graduated from Loyola Law School and then clerked for U.S. District Judge Ronald Lew of California's Central District. He subsequently worked as a prosecutor in the Los Angeles U.S. Attorney's office and taught law at the University of Southern California. He also spent time working for the U.S. Department of Justice as the overseer of a computer-hacking program, and then as vice chairman of the Department's Intellectual Property Task Force. In 2002 Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa appointed Alikhan as Deputy Mayor of Homeland Security and Public Safety for the City of Los Angeles, a position he held until 2006.

During his years in Los Angeles, Alikhan was responsible for derailing Police Department efforts to monitor activities within the city’s Muslim community, where numerous radical mosques and madrassas were known to exist, and where some of the 9/11 hijackers had received support from local residents.

Hostile toward Israel, Alikhan is affiliated with the Muslim Public Affairs Council, which has referred to the terrorist organization Hezbollah as a "liberation movement." Alikhan opposed President George W. Bush's prosecution of the war on Islamic terror.

In April 2009, Janet Napolitano appointed Alikhan as assistant secretary for the Office of Policy Development in Barack Obama's Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations' Los Angeles branch, praised the appointment:

“Congratulations to Mr. Alikhan on this well-deserved appointment. [His] new position reflects his and the community's dedication to helping preserve the security of our country. The American Muslim community can be proud of him."

Thirteen days prior to his Homeland Security appointment, Alikhan had participated in a Muslim Public Affairs Council fundraiser called "Be the Change," to support what the organization described as its leadership-development programs.

In November 2010 Alikhan stepped down from his DHS position and took a job as Distinguished Visiting Professor of Homeland Security and Counterterrorism at the National Defense University’s College of International Security Affairs in Washington, D.C.