Over the past week, Mamdani has faced criticism from activists, community members, and the Left over his continued backtracking when it comes to policing, especially after the shooting in Marble Hill, where an ICE agent violently shot a Dominican man named Oscar Belgal in the neck during an attempted arrest, with Belgal’s five-year-old son in the car. The NYPD then arrested protesters who mobilized in response, helping clear the way for ICE vehicles to leave.
Mamdani’s NYPD arrested five protesters and even shoved DSA-backed congressional candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier to the ground, yet NYC-DSA directed its criticism and demands exclusively at Tisch. Responding to the shooting, NYC-DSA Co-Chair, Gustavo Gordillo said that the city’s power to stop ICE is limited, and that only Tisch — not the mayor — was responsible for the NYPD’s response to protesters, adding that defeating Trump and electing DSA members to Congress must be the priority. NYC-DSA’s first statement after the shooting followed the same line: it demanded that Tisch end NYPD complicity with ICE and be fired if she could not, but did not even name Mamdani, who has repeatedly refused to get rid of her.
In fact, Mamdani’s retreat on addressing the NYPD’s history of violent policing was already visible even before the ICE shooting. After his election, he kept Jessica Tisch as commissioner, walked back his earlier calls to defund the police, presided over homeless encampment sweeps, and allowed the NYPD to arrest striking nurses. He had promised to arrest Netanyahu if he came to New York, but instead allowed the NYPD to arrest Palestinian protesters demanding Netanyahu’s arrest.
However, the growing criticism of Mamdani is not confined only to those activists who were shaped by the BLM movement or those confronting Trump’s latest anti-immigrant escalation in the streets. Mamdani is also facing criticism from Palestine movement organizations — including the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), Within Our Lifetime (WOL), and the Palestinian Assembly for Liberation–Awda (PAL-Awda), as well as Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA) and sectors of NYC-DSA.
On October 7, for instance, his statement and appearance at an Israeli-led vigil provoked a confrontation with Palestinian organizers who say his administration has retreated from the Palestine movement’s demands. The organizers also targeted Mamdani’s “antisemitism” policy, which allocates $6.4 million to Zionist organizations like the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York.
Why, then, is Mamdani alienating movements that helped put him in office? His defenders dismiss criticism as ultraleftism: he is delivering “good governance,” fixing potholes, and showing solidarity with Palestinians — even eating Palestinian food on October 7. Others are more critical, but still see his retreat mainly as a tactical failure — arguing that, if he would just grow a spine, he could in fact, even from the position of the executive office of the richest city in the world, ignore the interests of Wall Street, zionist organizations, the NYPD, Hochul and the landlords all on his own. They believe that there can be a peaceful coexistence between the demands of movement shaped by working class experiences of oppression and an apparatus literally designed to quell discontent and keep the machinery of capitalist daily life running as usual, if he plays his cards right. But is the problem simply a matter of fighting for a “better” Mamdani or a different strategy?
Bad Tactics or the Limits of Mamdani’s Strategy?
For many, the contradiction at the heart of municipal socialism is becoming clear: that socialism (which would require the political power of the working class and oppressed over the means of production and the state) cannot be fought for within a state apparatus that is ultimately beholden to ruling class interests and expects the state to be used to pacify class tensions.
Mamdani’s strategy makes him a mediator between a base shaped by growing anticapitalist consciousness — the movements for Black lives and Palestinian liberation, and the fight against ICE — and the powerful interests his office must accommodate: Wall Street, landlords, the NYPD, and the federal government.
It’s no wonder that he can call for abolishing ICE, yet as mayor he is drawn into negotiating with the president whose administration runs it instead of doing everything possible to unleash the self-organization of communities and workers that in places like Minneapolis proved to be the only force able to confront it.
Ignoring or overlooking this inherent contradiction in Mamdani’s strategy can disorient the Left, workers, and community members about the tasks ahead. When we refuse to hold Mamdani politically accountable — or treat the NYPD’s actions as beyond his influence — we make repression seem like a problem of one commissioner rather than the function of the state itself, which uses policing to defend and reproduce the capitalist order. That can leave us unprepared for the next attack: if we expect City Hall to correct itself, we won’t build the independent organizations workers and communities need to defend themselves and confront repression.
We Need Immigrant Defense Committees and We Need Them Now
If this strategy cannot defend immigrant communities, oppose ICE, or challenge police repression, what can? For one thing, we need immigrant defense committees rooted in neighborhoods, workplaces, schools, unions, and tenants’ organizations — linked to rapid-response networks and the movements for Palestinian liberation, Black lives, and women’s rights. We have to fight to build these committees within the organizations people already belong to — from our unions and grassroots organizing spaces to DSA. DSA has the reach to help put this plan into motion and the base to make its candidates, including combative ones like Darializa Avila Chevalier, and its elected officials answerable to democratic assemblies that set the movement’s demands and strategy.
With Tom Homan now threatening to “flood the zone” of sanctuary cities with ICE officers, the danger is immediate. Minneapolis offers a model: neighbors organized to monitor ICE, warn one another, and defend their communities without waiting for City Hall or the next election. Belgal’s case shows the stakes. His lawyers say ICE removed him from the hospital before he received surgery; he is now in solitary confinement with a bullet lodged in his neck, numbness on the left side of his face, and impaired hearing.
The Left will be told that criticism of Mamdani helps Trump, that we should be patient, and that Tisch — not the mayor — is responsible for the NYPD. Those arguments make it harder to prepare for the next attack and keep the left from naming what is actually happening: Mamdani’s strategy of appeasement puts him on the side of the police and the state against the movements demanding change. We need the courage to say so and the determination to build immigrant defense committees that can organize our communities independently to resist ICE and police repression.
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