Zohran Mamdani: A Champion for Immigrants

By Rod Granger

“New York will remain a city of immigrants, a city built by immigrants, powered by immigrants, and as of tonight, led by an immigrant.” 

With these words during his victory speech, Zohran Mamdani loudly and clearly affirmed once again his promise to protect and advocate for the rights of immigrants as the first Muslim mayor of New York City. He thanked his many supporters, including “those who are so often forgotten by the politics of our city and who made this movement their own. I speak of Yemeni bodega owners and Mexican abuelas, Senegalese taxi drivers and Uzbek nurses, Trinidadian line cooks and Ethiopian aunties, yes aunties.”

Mamdani also did not hesitate to speak truth to power throughout his campaign. At an appearance in Staten Island following his primary win in June, he said that he’d won that race “speaking to the fact that the 40 percent of New Yorkers who were born elsewhere deserve recognition, deserve respect, and deserve equality.” And during the final mayoral debate, he called himself Donald Trump’s “worst nightmare, as a progressive Muslim immigrant, who actually fights for the things that I believe in.”

He has called ICE a “reckless entity” and a “rogue agency,” and the morning after his election he said that “My message to ICE agents, and to everyone across this city, is that everyone will be held to the same standard of the law…There is sadly a sense that is growing across this country that certain people are allowed to violate the law whether that be the president or agents themselves.” New Yorkers are looking for “an era of clarity and an era of conviction,” he said, “And that’s what we will deliver to them.”

So how committed is Mamdani to protecting immigrants and all New Yorkers? His message to President Trump: “To get to any of us, you will have to get through all of us.”