Zohran may have won the hearts of socialists. But Americans can see through his tricks.
Now Mamdani just put ICE in danger with one move he’ll live to regret.
New York City’s socialist mayor has found a new way to pick a fight with the federal government. On Friday, Zohran Mamdani posted a Spanish-language video, with English subtitles, instructing residents on how to respond if they encounter Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Republicans immediately accused him of helping illegal aliens dodge the law.
The clip runs about a minute and a half. Mamdani posted it with the caption, “If you encounter ICE, here’s what every New Yorker should know.” In it, he says, “If you encounter ICE, these are your rights,” and then walks viewers through what he describes as their protections.
The central message is that agents need a court order to go inside private spaces. “ICE cannot legally enter private spaces without a judicial order,” Mamdani says, listing homes, churches, hospitals and non-public areas of workplaces. He tells viewers to check any document for the words “United States District Court” and a judge’s signature, and even to ask officers to slide the order under the door.
If stopped on the street, he says, ask, “Am I free to go?” If the answer is yes, walk away calmly. He urges viewers to remain silent and not to sign anything without first consulting a lawyer. He then shares the city’s legal support hotline and closes by affirming that New Yorkers have “the right to protest,” pledging to “protect that right,” in what he calls “very frightening times.”
Republicans reacted with fury. Sen. Rick Scott of Florida wrote that the mayor is “openly helping illegal aliens evade ICE and undermine the law.” Sen. Mike Lee of Utah complained, “At no point in this video is anyone urged to abide by the laws of the United States.” Rep. LaLota said, “Today, the socialist mayor is using taxpayer resources to instruct illegals, in Spanish, how to evade accountability.”
Fairness requires acknowledging how much of the video’s content is simply standard legal information. A person generally has the right to remain silent, to decline to sign documents without counsel and to ask whether they are free to leave. Those are constitutional protections that apply to citizens and non-citizens alike, and lawyers across the political spectrum give the same advice. A Daily Wire description of the clip itself noted its instructions included how to refuse agents entry and how to access taxpayer-funded immigration legal services.
But the targeting is what has drawn criticism. The video was recorded in Spanish and aimed at a specific audience, though it was labeled as a message for “every New Yorker.” Critics argue that no one believes this is aimed at a citizen worried about a random police stop, but at people who are in the country illegally and want to avoid federal officers who are lawfully enforcing immigration law.
There is also a question about who pays. Conservative outlets point out that the video was professionally produced and that the city’s legal hotline is funded by taxpayers. Whether the production used city resources is a fair question for the mayor’s office to answer, and New Yorkers who are paying some of the highest rents in America have every right to ask where their money is going.
It is also not the mayor’s first move of this kind. RedState reported that, weeks before he took office in January, then-mayor-elect Mamdani released a nearly identical video coaching people to refuse entry to ICE, demand a judicial warrant and stay silent. In other words, this is not a slip of the tongue. It is a policy position he campaigned on and is now carrying out.
The timing makes it more inflammatory. It comes after an ICE officer shot Oscar Belgal earlier this month, a 28-year-old Dominican national, in the neck during an attempted detention in Manhattan, a case still under investigation. Mamdani has called for ICE to be abolished and has pledged to defend New York’s sanctuary-city policies, which limit the circumstances in which municipal authorities cooperate with federal immigration enforcement.
Federal law is clear on one point that no video can change. Immigration authorities retain jurisdiction to enforce national immigration law within New York City, whatever the mayor thinks of it. A city can decline to assist, but it cannot nullify the Constitution’s allocation of immigration power to Washington.
There is a populist point worth making that goes beyond partisan outrage. New Yorkers are coping with high rents, rising costs and public safety worries. A mayor who spends a Friday morning on a video about how to deal with federal agents, instead of on those everyday concerns, is sending a message about his priorities. Voters in the city, and in the rest of the country, can decide whether that is the message they want from a leader.
None of this means anyone should treat the video as a crime. Informing people of their constitutional rights is lawful. But it is also fair for critics to point out that a public official has an obligation to uphold the law and to encourage respect for it, and that a message focused entirely on how to avoid enforcement does not do that.
In the end, the fight over this video is a fight over a larger question: whether a city can set itself against the enforcement of national law and still expect the benefits of being part of the nation. That question will not be settled by a minute-and-a-half clip on X. It will be settled in courts, in elections and in the daily choices of the people who live in America’s largest city.
