Zohran Mamdani is the first Muslim mayor of New York City, United States. He is also the first South Asian mayor in the city. Mamdani’s Republican cynic cannot accept this at all. They want to prevent him from becoming mayor at any cost. So now they are talking about canceling Mamdani’s citizenship.
President of the United States Donald Trump has said many things about Mamdani before the election. He called the 34-year-old Ugandan-born Muslim a ‘communist’. Expressing doubts about his American citizenship. Mamdani even threatened to cut off central funding in New York if he became mayor.
Echoing Trump, some Republican lawmakers have called for an investigation into Mamdani’s citizenship process. Some even called for his citizenship to be revoked and his deportation from the United States. They alleged that Mamdani was involved in communist and ‘terrorist’ activities. Although they could not show any evidence.
Republican Representative Andy Ogles asked House Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate Mamdani’s citizenship. Later on October 29, he said, “If Mamdani lies on his citizenship documents, he cannot remain a citizen and cannot run in the New York City Mayor Election.”
Zohran Mamdani was born in Uganda. He immigrated to the United States in 1998 at the age of seven and became a citizen of the country in 2018.
“There is no credible evidence that Mamdani was unfit to take the oath of citizenship or withheld information from the documents,” said immigration lawyer Jeremy McKinley.
Mamdani is a democratic socialist and a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).
Republicans’ complaints are old
When Mamdani was selected as the Democratic Party’s New York Mayor Candidate last summer, questions about his citizenship began. Ogles called for Mamdani’s citizenship to be revoked in a letter to Pam Bondi in JuneHe referred to a rap song written by Mamdani in the letter that expressed support for the “Holy Land Five”. The Holy Land Five are five members of the Muslim charity Holy Land Foundation who were convicted in 2008 of supporting Hamas.
Another organization, The New York Young Republican Club, is citing the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution to block Mamdani’s run for mayor, the New York Post reports. They say that no one can perform government duties if he “supports or sympathizes with the enemies of the country”.
How to revoke citizenship
The United States Department of Justice can revoke citizenship in two ways—(1) by filing a criminal case or (2) by filing a civil suit. But the government has to prove that the applicant has lied or given wrong information in the application form.
Case Western Reserve University professor Cassandra Burke Robertson said, “It is unlikely that any case to revoke Mamdani’s citizenship will be accepted.”
But citizenship revocations are rare in the United States, although they have increased slightly under the Trump administration, said Hofstra University professor Irina Mantra.
Finally, if Mamdani’s citizenship is canceled, He can only remain as a Permanent Resident and then can no longer be the New York Mayor.
