The Trump administration has raised the possibility of stripping Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic mayoral candidate for New York City, of his US citizenship as part of a crackdown against foreign-born citizens convicted of certain offences.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, appeared to pave the way for an investigation into Mamdani’s status after Andy Ogles, a rightwing Republican representative for Tennessee, called for his citizenship to be revoked on the grounds that he may have concealed his support for “terrorism” during the naturalization process.
Mamdani, 33, who was born in Uganda to ethnic Indian parents, became a US citizen in 2018 and has attracted widespread media attention – and controversy – over his vocal support for Palestinian rights.
Donald Trump was asked on Tuesday about Mamdani’s pledge to “stop masked” Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents “from deporting our neighbors”. The US president responded: “Well, then, we’ll have to arrest him,” Axios reported.
Mamdani posted a statement on X in response. “The President of the United States just threatened to have me arrested, stripped of my citizenship, put in a detention camp and deported. Not because I have broken any law but because I will refuse to let Ice terrorize our city,” he wrote.
He continued: “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. We will not accept this intimidation.”
Controversy over his immigration status follows a chorus of Islamophobic attacks on his Muslim faith following his victory in last week’s New York mayoral primary, when he finished first in a field that included Andrew Cuomo, the former New York state governor and favored candidate of the Democratic establishment.
It also comes after the Trump administration instructed attorneys to prioritize denaturalizing foreign-born US citizens who had committed specified crimes. A justice department memo instructs lawyers to institute proceedings against naturalized citizens who are suspected of having “illegally procured” naturalization or having done so by “concealment of a material fact or by willful misrepresentation”.
Ogles wrote to Pam Bondi, the attorney general, calling for an investigation into Mamdani after his Democratic mayoral primary victory on the grounds that “he may have procured US citizenship through willful misrepresentation or concealment of material support for terrorism”.
As evidence, he cited a rap song by Mamdani, that included the line ”my love to the Holy Land five, in which he called members of a foundation convicted of supporting Hamas “my guys”. He also referred to Mamdani’s refusal to condemn the phrase “globalize the intifada”.
In an accompanying post on X, Ogles wrote: “Zohran ‘little muhammad’ Mamdani is an antisemitic, socialist, communist who will destroy the great City of New York. He needs to be deported.”
Asked about Ogles’s call, Leavitt said: “I have not seen those claims, but surely if they are true, it’s something that should be investigated.”
The justice department has confirmed receiving Ogles’s letter but has not commented further.
Chris Murphy, a Democratic senator for Connecticut who has become one of the Trump administration’s most effective critics, called the demand to denaturalize Mamdani “racist bullshit”.
“Trump will stop at nothing to protect billionaires and price gouging corporations, even racist bullshit like this,” he wrote.
“Zohran won because he ran a campaign laser focused on putting power back in the hands of working people. And that’s a threat to the Mar-a-Lago crowd.”
Mamdani, a self-proclaimed democratic socialist, has had his social media posts and previous political activism fiercely scrutinized since last week’s election victory, which was accompanied by promises of leftwing populist policies for New York if he is eventually elected mayor.
Amid a chorus of rightwing vitriol, Donald Trump has called him “a pure communist” and has threatened to cut off funds to New York if Mamdani becomes mayor and “doesn’t behave himself”.
At a news conference at the official unveiling of a new detention centre for immigrants in Florida’s Everglades, Trump reiterated his communist remark and insinuated that Mamdani had obtained his citizenship “illegally”.
“We don’t need a communist in this country, but if we have one, I’m going to be watching over him very carefully on behalf of the nation. We send him money, we send him all the things that he needs to run a government,” Trump said.
“We’re going to be watching that very carefully. A lot of people are saying, he’s here illegally. We’re going to look at everything, but ideally, he’s going to turn out to be much less than a communist. Right now he’s a communist, that’s not a socialist.”
Mamdani also commented on the fact that Trump praised Eric Adams, the current New York City mayor who is struggling in his re-election campaign and switched from representing the Democratic party to running again as an independent. Trump said Adams was a “good person” whom he had “helped out a little bit”, referring to the US justice department in April dismissing a federal corruption case against Adams.
Mamdani said in his post: “That Trump included praise for Adams in his authoritarian threats is unsurprising.”
Joanna Walters contributed reporting
