Two House Republicans are pressing the Justice Department to investigate New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani’s path to U.S. citizenship.
Mamdani, a Democrat and the front-runner in the mayoral race, became a U.S. citizen in 2018 after immigrating to the United States as a child from Uganda.
Rep. Randy Fine, R-Fla., last week demanded the federal government “review every naturalization of the past 30 years – starting with Mamdani.”
“I just think we need to take a hard look at how these folks became citizens, and if there is any fraud or any violation of the rules we need to denaturalize and deport,” Fine told the New York Post.
“I know that there’s a lot of us that are very, very concerned about the enemy within – people who have come to this country to become citizens, to destroy it,” he said. “If they’re not Americans, they can’t be in office.”
Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., has also called for Mamdani to be deported.
On June 26, he sent a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi pushing for a probe into whether Mamdani “should be subject to denaturalization proceedings” on grounds “he may have procured U.S. citizenship through willful representation or concealment of material support for terrorism.”
“In 2018 when he was naturalized, he failed to disclose some of the things that he had been doing, one of which was joining the [Democratic] Socialists of America. That’s a communist organization which, quite frankly, at that time, would have disqualified him from becoming a United States citizen,” Ogles told Newsmax in late June.
Mamdani, a dual citizen of the U.S. and Uganda, has criticized the push by Fine and Ogles.
“In a moment where Americans across the country are deeply fearful of whether they can afford the basic dignities of life, be it healthcare, be it groceries, be it their rent, the focus of the Republican Party is to try and denaturalize the Muslim guy that won the New York City Democratic primary with the most votes in our city’s history?” Mamdani told MSNBC on Saturday.
“It just speaks to the fact that for the Republican party, the only agenda they really have on offer is that of cruelty and punishment.”
A DOJ spokesperson told the Post that “due to the Democrats’ shutdown, congressional correspondence is delayed.
“The department does not comment on the status of ongoing or potential investigations.”
Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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