Zohran Mamdani has felt the fear that stalks the halls of New York City’s immigration courts in the Trump era.
The mayor-elect found himself waiting nervously on a Manhattan sidewalk when his father, who is Indian-Ugandan, was called in for his citizenship interview.
“I was there earlier this year outside of 26 Federal Plaza,” Mamdani said in an interview with TPM. “I spent four hours waiting not knowing what was going to happen.”
During President Donald Trump’s second term, these types of legal proceedings have often ended in violent encounters between masked agents from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency and immigrants who are seeking to become Americans. The building where Mamdani’s father had his interview has been ground zero for this phenomenon.
”I was lucky, unlike many New Yorkers, in that my father came down and out of 26 Federal Plaza.”
