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New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani criticized U.S. President Donald Trump's immigration policies Friday without naming him, saying immigration helped build New York City and condemning what he described as efforts by "the powerful" to define America through exclusion.
Mamdani, New York's first Muslim, South Asian and African-born mayor, said the story of America had often been written by people who were told by those with power, wealth and influence that they were not exceptional.
"The irony is that the story of America has so often been written by those who were told by others with power and influence and wealth that they were anything but exceptional," Mamdani said.
"For generation after generation, we have been told that when the world has sent its people to our shores, it has not sent its best," he added.
Mamdani's Indian and Ugandan parents moved to New York City from Kampala, Uganda, when he was 7 years old.
Mamdani said generations of immigrants and religious communities helped shape the United States.
"It sent Puritans and Sikhs and Quakers and Muslims and Jewish people who were banished for praying the wrong way, worshiping the wrong gods, angering the wrong people," he said.
He criticized "the powerful," saying they view America as "an arena of supremacy."
"Only a select few are allowed freedom, where not all are created equal. America, if you ask them, becomes less the more people it welcomes," Mamdani said.
"America, they will tell you, belongs only to those with the right accent or the right shade of skin. The rest of us, they insist, should be grateful for merely being allowed to visit how small they are. How weak, how unoriginal," he added.
Trump, whom Mamdani did not mention by name, has led a controversial and aggressive crackdown on immigrants, accusing them of being behind crime waves and gang wars, especially since starting his second term last January.
Mamdani said that as the U.S. approaches its 250th anniversary on Saturday, Independence Day, the country faces deep contradictions.
"We see a city of contradictions within a nation of contradictions," he said.
"We see the wealthiest country in the history of the world, one where children go to sleep hungry, while the world's first trillionaire hungers for more. We see monopolies that dominate every industry and oligarchs who buy elections," Mamdani said.
He said America can be seen both in government spending on "bombs and bailouts" and in citizens who still believe the country belongs to "we, the people."
"Yes, we see America when we spend our tax dollars on bombs and bailouts, when we sell our elections to the highest bidder, yet we see it just as clearly in every American who still believes this country belongs to we, the people," he said.
Mamdani said patriotism was never about "pretending our nation is without flaws."
"Patriotism is every act of righteous dissent ... It is every protest held a decade before its time. It is precisely because we love this nation that we will not leave it," he said.
The mayor said the ideals on which the United States was built could endure any authoritarian rule if people continued to defend them.
"The ideals upon which our nation was built, they are strong enough to endure any authoritarian regime, but only if we reach for them," Mamdani said.
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