New York City Mayor Mamdani is demanding that U.S. immigration policy start obeying Islam.
Mamdani invoked Islamic doctrine to define civic obligation and delegitimize lawful, constitutional authority at the city's recent Interfaith Breakfast.
At New York City’s Interfaith Breakfast, Mayor Zohran Mamdani did not merely criticize federal immigration enforcement — he reframed it as a religious and moral transgression. Invoking the Islamic doctrine of Hijra, he urged New Yorkers to “stand alongside the stranger” in permanent, unqualified solidarity, elevating prophetic example above constitutional sovereignty.
When you put this beside the attempt to build an Islamic city in Texas, and what's happening with the Muslim takeover in Michigan, Minnesota, and elsewhere, it should "awaken those who slumber and sleep."
Be informed, not misled.
“Islam [is] a religion built upon a narrative of migration,” Mamdani declared. “The story of the Hijra reminds us that Prophet Muhammad … was a stranger too, who fled Mecca and was welcomed in Medina.” He then universalized the narrative into a binding civic command: “The obligation is upon us all … to look out for the stranger.”
Mamdani said:
Across this country, day after day, we bear witness to cruelty that staggers the conscience. Masked agents, paid by our own tax dollars, violate the Constitution and visit terror upon our neighbors. They arrive as if atop a pale horse, and they leave a path of wreckage in their wake. People ripped from their cars. Guns drawn against the unarmed. Families torn apart. Lives shattered—quietly, swiftly, brutally.
If these are not attacks upon the stranger among us, what is?
This cruelty is no faraway concept. ICE operates here in New York. In our courthouses. Our workplaces. They skulk at 26 Federal Plaza—the same building where I waited in fear as my father had his citizenship interview.
Writing for The Federalist, Ammon Blair says, "In this framework, federal enforcement is not lawful authority but cruelty. Immigration officers become 'masked agents, paid by our own tax dollars,' who violate the Constitution and visit terror upon our neighbors.”
“If these are not attacks upon the stranger among us, what is?” Mamdani asked. “There is no reforming something so rotten and base.”
This is an inversion of moral authority.
Mass migration is framed as a moral and civilizational imperative, demanding compassion and openness, while serious pushback on enforcement is recast as intolerant, unjust, or even xenophobic. This framing mirrors elements of the Muslim Brotherhood’s doctrine of tamkeen (institutional entrenchment) outlined in strategic writings such as the 1991 Explanatory Memorandum and the 1982 Project, which describe a phased civilizational strategy built on population presence, parallel institutions, resistance to full assimilation, and long-term influence over policy, law, and public narrative.
In his speech Mamdani invoked Islamic doctrine to define civic obligation and delegitimize lawful, constitutional authority, largely without media critique — even as hosts of voices on the left regularly decry any invocation of Christianity in the public square. In doing so he transformed Islamic narrative into civic mandate and federal enforcement into sacrilege, which will inevitably cause a gradual dissolution of constitutional sovereignty.
Once enforcement is recast as violence and migration as a moral right, borders cease to function as instruments of self-government. Citizenship ceases to require allegiance. Presence detaches from sovereign consent. Loyalty gives way to dependency. The state remains, but its authority is hollowed out — enforcement rendered illegitimate not by law, but by accusation.
This framework directly abandons the Naturalization Oath — the pledge to “absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance … to any foreign … sovereignty” and to bear “true faith and allegiance” to the Constitution. That oath presumes a vertical bond between citizen and republic. Mamdani replaces it with a horizontal obligation to the “stranger,” regardless of legality, capacity, or constitutional order.
Allegiance becomes optional; empathy becomes compulsory.
This rhetoric was not abstract. It was paired with executive action. Mamdani’s signing of Executive Order 13 reaffirmed sanctuary protections, barred ICE entry onto city property — including schools, shelters, and hospitals — without a judicial warrant, and restricted data-sharing with federal authorities except where legally compelled. He also mobilized faith institutions as citywide distribution nodes for “Know Your Rights” materials.
Victor Davis Hanson warns, "Tribalism is one of history’s great destroyers. Once racial, religious, ethnic, or clan ties trump all considerations of merit and loyalty to the larger commonwealth, then factionalism leads to violence, violence to chaos, and chaos to the end of the state itself.”
He says, "Mamdani’s speech illustrates that process in motion. The same pattern produced Europe’s parallel societies and no-go zones, where enforcement became politically untouchable. It is now visible in American cities, where sanctuary expansion renders borders symbolic and law selectively optional."
This is not compassion. It is the systematic replacement of citizenship with dependency, sovereignty with moral coercion, and a nation bound by law with tribes bound by grievance — abandoning the Naturalization Oath’s demand for “true faith and allegiance” to the Constitution.
Hanson says, "Tribal infighting is usually what erodes otherwise common cultures—from the city-states of ancient Greece to the constantly warring republics of Renaissance Italy to an increasingly divided America today."
Mamdani's speech not only stands in opposition to our Constitution, but also to biblical teaching regarding the "Stranger."
Takeaway
Meet "The biblical Stranger."
Open borders advocates like to claim that the Bible supports what they call "comprehensive immigration reform," which essentially means open borders.
Although Mamdani is transitioning to the Quran, the religious left's favorite Scripture to support their position is usually Leviticus 19:33-34:
"And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him. But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt."
Exodus 23:9 reminds us we know how a stranger feels, "For you lived as strangers in the land of Egypt."
Clearly, anyone of Judeo-Christian faith, when they read that passage, would want to do the right thing regarding the "stranger" in our land.
The religious left has built an open borders movement off that Scripture and a couple of others that they feel support open borders.
The key question is, "Who is the stranger?"
The religious left argues that a stranger is any foreigner who immigrates, including those who broke the law.
"Welcome the stranger" is now the banner for the religious left in their advocacy of, essentially, open borders. And it's always linked with "compassion."
The Bible clearly defines a stranger as "a man of non-Israelite birth, resident in the promised land with the permission of the Israelite authorities." Your Bible dictionary will lead you to these verses.
So a stranger in Israel was an immigrant who was in the country with permission. Our founding immigration laws were based on Judeo-Christian principles. Not Islam.
When a stranger is mentioned in the Bible, it always refers to a legal alien, not an illegal one---as in Leviticus 19:33-34.
Borders were important in the most ancient biblical times. When Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt, he asked permission each time he crossed a border and entered a new land. When he was denied permission to enter, he changed course and took a different route.
About 2000 years before Christ, Egypt was an oasis of prosperity and opportunity, much like the United States is today. It was a magnet for migrants suffering from climate or economic difficulties. When famine struck the land of Canaan, Abraham, for example, turned to Egypt for relief (Genesis 12: 10).
Egypt didn't appreciate the surge at their borders because it included hostile marauders and foreign barbarians, which they deemed a threat to their country.
In Genesis 12, we see Abraham lie to the authorities, claiming his wife was his sister, and the authorities expelled him from Egypt. And Abraham complied with the authorities. He did not try to sneak back in.
In Hebrew, the Bible uses two different words to define a "foreigner" and an "alien." A foreigner was a person from another country, such as a tourist or businessman, who was in the country only temporarily with permission.
An alien was a person from another land who planned to take up residence, again with the permission of the host country.
When Abraham's great-grandson Joseph wanted to bring his father and brothers to Egypt during a great famine, he had to get permission from Pharaoh. Even though he held a high position in government, Joseph himself was not Egyptian. He was a guest — a foreigner who could not legally bring his family into the land.
When Joseph's brothers returned, they appealed to Pharaoh again (Gen. 47:4-6) to allow them to live in the land of Goshen.
God has called us to a life of compassion and charity, and to help the poor.
Nowhere in the Bible are we instructed to remove the security of borders in the name of the Lord, yet that's exactly what the religious left and now the Muslims are demanding we do.
Compassion and charity do not require us to look the other way when someone breaks the law, nor do they demand that we deconstruct our nation.
Be Informed. Be Discerning. Be Vigilant. Be Engaged, Be Bold. Be Prayerful.