New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani joins a demonstration outside of Tesla stores to protest Elon Musk and his then-role at the Department of Government Efficiency in the West Village neighborhood of New York City on March 29, 2025. Credit – Andrew Lichtenstein—Corbis/Getty Images
Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic candidate in the upcoming New York City mayoral race, denounced President Donald Trump’s threat to arrest him over his pledge to push back on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids, calling the President’s comments “an attack on our democracy” and “intimidation.”
Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist state assemblymember whose victory over former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in last week’s Democratic primary marked a stunning political upset, has said that he would be “Donald Trump’s worst nightmare.” He has condemned the Trump Administration’s efforts to conduct mass deportations, promising in a speech the night of the primary election to use his authority to “stop masked ICE agents from deporting our neighbors.”
Trump has criticized Mamdani since the 33-year-old state lawmaker declared victory in the Democratic primary, calling him “a 100% Communist lunatic” in the wake of the election. The President escalated his attacks on Mamdani during a press briefing on Tuesday. He alluded to false claims that Mamdani is in the country “illegally.” Mamdani is not in the U.S. illegally; he was born in Uganda and moved to the U.S. at the age of 7, becoming a naturalized American citizen in 2018. Trump was also asked during the press briefing how he responded to Mamdani’s vow to defy ICE agents, to which the President replied, “Well then, we’ll have to arrest him.”
Mamdani took to social media hours later to slam the President’s comments, saying that Trump had threatened to arrest him “not because I have broken any law but because I will refuse to let ICE terrorize our city.”
“His statements don’t just represent an attack on our democracy but an attempt to send a message to every New Yorker who refuses to hide in the shadows: if you speak up, they will come for you,” Mamdani said in his statement. “We will not accept this intimidation.”
The Trump Administration’s mass-deportation operation has sparked widespread controversy and criticism, including among New York politicians. In June, New York City comptroller Brad Lander, a candidate in the Democratic primary race for mayor at the time, was detained by federal agents at a Manhattan immigration courthouse as he sought to escort an individual that federal officials were seemingly attempting to arrest. Lander had been observing immigration court hearings after a growing number of reports that immigrants attending court proceedings there were being arrested by ICE agents. The same month, thousands of people took to the streets in Los Angeles to protest ICE raids in the area, provoking Trump’s ire and prompting him to mobilize the National Guard. Protests over Trump’s aggressive immigration policies soon spread to many other cities across the country, including New York City.
Contact us at letters@time.com.
