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Updated: Feb 20, 2019 15:38 IST

Bernie Sanders, a frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination, announced the appointment of Pakistani American civil rights activist Faiz Shakir as his campaign manager on Tuesday.

The appointment shot to the top of US politics news, hailing Shakir as the first Muslim, the first Pakistani American in other words, to hold a position of the campaign manager of the presidential campaign ever.

Shakir, who was born to immigrants from Pakistan, was the national political director with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the iconic civil rights group that has led the challenge against US president Donald Trump on multiple fronts, especially immigration.

Before joining the ACLU, Shakir was a senior adviser to the then top Democratic senator Harry Reid and had also worked on the staff of the top House Democrat Nancy Pelosi, who is emerging as Trump’s most formidable opponent.

Shakir first made a name for himself as an editor at the website ThinkProgress, the news arm associated with, though editorially independent of, the powerhouse Democratic think-tank Center for American Progress.