It is precisely because we love this nation that we will not leave it
On the morning of America's 250th anniversary, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani stood at City Hall surrounded by newly naturalized citizens and offered a quiet but pointed counterargument to the nation's current direction on immigration. Speaking as a naturalized citizen himself — one who once glimpsed the Statue of Liberty from an airplane window as a child from Uganda — he argued that American exceptionalism has never resided in power or wealth, but in the nation's capacity to become more faithful to its own ideals. Without naming the president, he placed the current moment inside a longer struggle over who belongs, who is welcomed, and what the promise of asylum has always meant. His speech was less a political attack than a philosophical insistence: that dissent, inclusion, and striving are not threats to patriotism, but its very substance.
- With ICE operations removing undocumented workers from the neighborhoods that depend on them, Mamdani named the tension plainly — masked agents eating food cooked by the very people they then disappear into unmarked vans.
- The speech arrives as municipal and federal governments move further apart on immigration enforcement, with cities like New York increasingly positioned as sanctuaries against federal deportation policy.
- Mamdani reframed the ideological battlefield: rather than defending immigrants against charges of un-Americanness, he argued that exclusion and division are themselves the un-American acts — old, cheap, and already defeated before.
- He invoked Thomas Paine's vision of America as asylum for the persecuted, then catalogued how far the current moment has drifted — hungry children, oligarchs buying elections, and asylum seekers being prosecuted rather than protected.
- The speech signals that major American cities may deepen their resistance to federal immigration enforcement, with the 250th anniversary serving as both backdrop and moral argument for that defiance.
On the morning of America's 250th birthday, Mayor Zohran Mamdani stood behind George Washington's desk at City Hall and delivered a speech calibrated as a counterweight to the Trump administration's immigration policies — without once naming the president. He was surrounded by newly naturalized citizens, a staging that made his own story part of the argument.
Mamdani arrived in the United States from Uganda at age seven. His family saw the Statue of Liberty from an airplane window and understood what it promised. That promise, he insisted, was not a relic — it was still being written, still being tested. He rejected the conventional story of American exceptionalism rooted in wealth and military power, offering instead a different definition: America is exceptional because nothing here is fixed into place. Waves of immigrants who arrived in poverty, who practiced distrusted religions, who were told they did not belong — they built the country anyway. That capacity to change and include, he argued, is the true source of American greatness.
He then turned to what he saw arrayed against that vision. Some believe America is an arena of supremacy, that freedom belongs only to a select few, that the nation diminishes with every new arrival. 'How small they are,' he said. 'How weak. How unoriginal.' Division, he noted, is the oldest and cheapest trick in politics — but it has been defeated before.
Invoking Thomas Paine's image of America as asylum for the persecuted, Mamdani catalogued the contradictions of the present moment: children going to sleep hungry in the wealthiest nation in history, monopolies dominating every industry, oligarchs purchasing elections — and most pointedly, masked agents removing undocumented neighbors from the communities that depend on them.
Yet he insisted the promise remained visible. He saw it each time neighbors linked arms without asking for papers, each time working people demanded more not just for themselves but for others. Toward the end, he addressed the phrase often hurled at critics of America: love it or leave it. His answer was direct. Patriotism has never meant pretending the nation is without flaw. It is righteous dissent. It is marches held under a heavy sun. 'It is precisely because we love this nation that we will not leave it,' he said. The work of America is the striving — and it belongs to everyone, especially those who were told they did not belong at all.
On the morning of America's 250th birthday, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani stood behind George Washington's desk at City Hall and delivered a speech that was, at its core, a sustained argument with an absent president. Mamdani did not name Donald Trump. He did not need to. Every sentence was calibrated as a counterweight to the administration's approach to immigration, asylum, and who belongs in America—a message he would deliver hours before Trump himself addressed the nation from South Dakota.
Mamdani spoke surrounded by recently naturalized citizens, a deliberate staging that made his own biography part of the argument. He arrived in the United States from Uganda at seven years old. His family saw the Statue of Liberty from an airplane window and understood, even from the air, what it promised. That promise—the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—was not, he insisted, some relic of the founding. It was alive, still being written, still being tested. "The promise of the beautiful, patriotic work of rendering America, year after year, a little more faithful to its founding ideals," he said. This was not nostalgia. This was a claim about what America was supposed to be doing, and what it had stopped doing.
Mamdani then reframed what American exceptionalism actually meant. The conventional story holds that America is exceptional because it is richer, stronger, more powerful. He rejected this entirely. "America is exceptional because here nothing is fixed into place," he said. The frontier may be closed. Humans may have walked on the moon. But the work of fulfilling the values in the Declaration of Independence—that work endures, and it belongs to everyone. He pointed to the waves of immigrants who arrived in poverty, who practiced religions the powerful distrusted, who were told by those with wealth and influence that they were anything but exceptional. Yet they built the country anyway. That, he argued, was the actual source of American exceptionalism: not dominance, but the capacity to change, to include, to become more faithful to its own ideals.
Then he turned directly to the forces arrayed against this vision. Speaking to the newly naturalized citizens in the room, he described what the powerful believe: that America is an arena of supremacy, that freedom belongs only to a select few, that the nation becomes less the more people it welcomes. "America, if you ask them, belongs only to those with the right accent or the right shade of skin," he said. "The rest of us, they insist, should be grateful for merely being allowed to visit. How small they are. How weak. How unoriginal." Division, he noted, is the oldest trick in politics, and the cheapest. But it has been vanquished before, and it can be again.
Mamdani then invoked Thomas Paine, who wrote of America as an asylum for the persecuted lovers of civic and religious liberty. "And yet 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," he said. He catalogued the contradictions he saw: the wealthiest country in history where children go to sleep hungry. Monopolies dominating every industry. Oligarchs buying elections. And then, most pointedly: "masked agents terrorizing our streets, eating food cooked by our undocumented neighbors before spiriting them away in unmarked vans." This was not abstract criticism. This was a description of ICE operations happening in New York City neighborhoods, of the people who cook in restaurants and clean buildings being removed from the communities that depend on them.
Yet Mamdani also insisted that the promise of America was still visible, still being enacted. He saw it in every American who believed the country belonged to the people. He saw it each time neighbors linked arms without asking how long someone had lived there or what papers they had. He saw it each time working people demanded more, not just for themselves but for their fellow Americans. This was not optimism divorced from reality. It was a claim that resistance itself was patriotic, that the work of America was the work of striving toward the ideals it had never fully lived up to.
Toward the end, Mamdani addressed the phrase often hurled at those who criticize America: "love it or leave it." He offered his answer. Patriotism has never been about pretending the nation is without flaws. Patriotism is righteous dissent. It is marches held under the heavy sun. It is protests held a decade before their time. "It is precisely because we love this nation that we will not leave it," he said. The ideals upon which America was built are strong enough to endure any authoritarian regime, but only if people reach for them. The work of America is the striving, the bettering, the reaching for perfection. It is work that belongs to everyone—especially to those who were told they did not belong at all.
Notable Quotes
America is exceptional because here nothing is fixed into place. The frontier may be closed, we may have walked on the moon, but the work of fulfilling the values first enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, that work endures, and it belongs to us all.— Mayor Zohran Mamdani
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.— Mayor Zohran Mamdani
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why did Mamdani choose to speak on this particular day, America's 250th birthday, rather than some other moment?
Because the birthday itself is a claim about what America is. It's a moment when the nation is supposed to reckon with its founding ideals. By speaking then, he was saying: this is what we promised to be, and this is how far we've fallen short. The timing made the contradiction unavoidable.
He never mentions Trump by name. Was that a strategic choice, or something else?
It was strategic, but not in a cynical way. By not naming him, Mamdani made the critique about something larger than one person or one administration. He was describing a pattern—the forces of division, the powerful who believe only some people deserve freedom. That pattern predates Trump and will outlast him. Naming him would have made it personal. This way, it's structural.
He talks about ICE agents eating food cooked by undocumented immigrants before deporting them. That's a very specific image. Why that one?
Because it captures the contradiction at the heart of the system. The country depends on undocumented labor—in kitchens, in construction, everywhere. But the government treats those same people as threats to be removed. The image of the agent eating the food is the contradiction made visible. It's not abstract. It's what's happening in New York right now.
What does he mean when he says American exceptionalism is about "nothing being fixed into place"?
He means that America's actual strength is its capacity to change, to become something different than it was. Not that it's automatically better or more powerful, but that it has the possibility of becoming more faithful to its own ideals. The frontier is closed, we've walked on the moon—those achievements don't matter as much as the fact that the work of becoming a more just nation is still possible, still ongoing.
Is he arguing that immigration enforcement is un-American?
He's arguing that the current approach to asylum and immigration contradicts what America claimed to be. Thomas Paine said America was an asylum for the persecuted. That's not a policy proposal—it's a founding principle. When the government persecutes people seeking asylum instead of welcoming them, it's not enforcing American law. It's betraying the American idea.