By Abida Kahlun
Bureau Chief Helsinki
Snn News Finland
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani used a speech marking the 250th anniversary of US independence to criticize the country’s current immigration policies, without directly naming President Donald Trump.
The Speech
Mamdani delivered the address on Friday, July 3, 2026, from New York City Hall, a day ahead of the July 4 Independence Day holiday.
He spoke while seated at a desk once used by George Washington, surrounded by recently naturalized US citizens holding American flags.
The location carries symbolic weight: City Hall sits near the site where the Declaration of Independence was first read to the Continental Army in 1776.
What Mamdani Said
Without naming Trump, Mamdani criticized unnamed “powerful” interests he said believe “America… becomes less, the more people it welcomes,” and who argue the country “belongs only to those with the right accent or the right shade of skin.”
He also referenced immigration enforcement operations, saying: “We see masked agents terrorizing our streets… before spiriting them away in unmarked vans.”
He additionally criticized wealth concentration, naming Elon Musk as the world’s “first trillionaire” in the same passage.
Mamdani, a democratic socialist born in Uganda who became a naturalized US citizen in 2018, described his own experience arriving in America and said immigrants including Jewish, Italian, and Syrian arrivals in past generations helped build the country despite facing discrimination and restrictive laws.
Context: A Contrast With Trump’s Own Address
The speech was timed to precede a separate July 4 address by President Trump at Mount Rushmore. Neither leader named the other directly, but multiple outlets, including CNN and NBC News, characterized Mamdani’s remarks as a direct rebuke of the Trump administration’s immigration policies.
The same week, the US Supreme Court upheld birthright citizenship, a ruling reported as a setback for the administration’s immigration agenda.
A Broader Pattern of Pro-Immigration Messaging
Mamdani’s speech came alongside a separate video message from Pope Leo XIV, the first US-born pope, who also marked the anniversary with remarks supportive of immigrants, according to Al Jazeera.
The two statements were reported together as parallel, though independent, pro-immigration messages issued around the same anniversary.
Political Backdrop
His speech followed a series of Democratic primary wins in New York by candidates he had endorsed.
He has said he intends to play a larger role in shaping the Democratic Party ahead of the November midterms, though he has confirmed he cannot run for US president under the Constitution’s natural-born-citizen requirement, and has said he does not support amending it.
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