Mamdani, who became a U.S. citizen in 2016, spoke to a crowd of several hundred people gathered outside City Hall.
Speaking from behind the George Washington desk and surrounded by recently naturalized citizens — including Mamdani himself, who arrived in the U.S. from Uganda at age seven and became a citizen in 2018 — the mayor said the city he sees today "looks very different from the one that greeted George Washington."
"That legacy of every generation of Americans insisting that the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is no relic of the past," Mamdani said. "It is what brought my family to this city when I was 7 years old. My family did not arrive by boat, although we saw the Statue of Liberty from the window of the plane. Even from the air, we could make out the promise of America."
Mamdani addressed the concept of American exceptionalism, arguing that the nation's true strength lies not in wealth or power but in the ongoing work of fulfilling the ideals of the Declaration of Independence. "The truth, my friends, is that America is exceptional because here nothing is fixed into place," he said.
He then turned to the recently naturalized citizens in attendance. "You each hold a special power. The power to determine what America means," Mamdani said. He contrasted that vision with what he described as the view of "the powerful," who he said see America as "an arena of supremacy, where only a select few are allowed freedom."
"America, if you ask them, becomes less the more people it welcomes. America, they will tell you, belongs only to those with the right accent or the right shade of skin," Mamdani said. "The rest of us, they insist, should be grateful for merely being allowed to visit. How small they are. How weak. How unoriginal."
The mayor quoted Thomas Payne's description of America as an asylum "for the persecuted lovers of civic and religious liberty," but said that today "too many of our leaders do not believe in a vision of this nation as an asylum for the persecuted, but rather as one that persecutes those seeking asylum."
Mamdani described a "city of contradictions in a nation of contradictions," citing wealth inequality, monopolies, and what he called "masked agents terrorizing our streets, eating food cooked by our undocumented neighbors before spiriting them away in unmarked vans."
He also addressed the "love it or leave it" refrain directed at those who criticize the country. "Patriotism has never been about pretending our nation is without flaws," Mamdani said. "Patriotism is every act of righteous dissent. It is every march led under the heavy sun. It is every protest held a decade before its time. It is precisely because we love this nation that we will not leave it."
The speech came days after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the Trump administration's effort to end birthright citizenship, and after three congressional candidates endorsed by Mamdani won their races in New York City, according to The Guardian. Trump was scheduled to deliver his address later Friday at Mount Rushmore, with festivities including fireworks, military bands and aviation flyovers.
Informational content only, not legal advice. Consult a licensed immigration attorney.