President Trump has threatened to deport Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee to be mayor of New York City and naturalized citizen. Zohran Mamdani is a U.S. citizen who was naturalized in 2018. In July 2025, Trump said “We don’t need a communist in this country, but if we have one, I’m going to be watching over him very carefully on behalf of the nation. We send him money, we send him all the things that he needs to run a government,” Trump said. “We’re going to be watching that very carefully. A lot of people are saying, he’s here illegally. We’re going to look at everything, but ideally, he’s going to turn out to be much less than a communist. Right now he’s a communist, that’s not a socialist.” House of Representatives member Andy Ogles, a Republican from Tennessee, has publicly called for the revocation of Mamdani’s citizenship. When asked about Ogles’ calls to investigate, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “Surely if those claims are true, it should be investigated.”
Zohran Mamdani is a naturalized U.S. citizen, and under U.S. law, citizens cannot be deported. Deportation authority applies only to non-citizens under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). Once someone is naturalized, they have the same constitutional protections as any other citizen (with extremely narrow exceptions for fraud in the naturalization process).
Any attempt to deport Mamdani would violate:
The Fourteenth Amendment, Citizenship Clause, which guarantees that once citizenship is lawfully obtained, it cannot be taken away arbitrarily by the government.
Supreme Court precedent (Afroyim v. Rusk, 1967), which held that the government cannot revoke citizenship as a punishment or for political reasons; citizenship can only be lost voluntarily.
8 U.S.C. § 1481, which lists the only legal grounds for loss of citizenship — all of which require voluntary acts by the citizen (e.g., formally renouncing citizenship, serving in a foreign army with intent to relinquish citizenship). Political ideology or criticism of the government is not a basis.
Revoking citizenship for being “a communist,” for disliking someone's political views, or for their political office would additionally violate:
The First Amendment, which protects political ideology, including unpopular or extreme political views. The government cannot penalize or remove citizenship because of political beliefs.
Equal Protection principles under the Fourteenth Amendment, since stripping citizenship for ideological or partisan reasons is unconstitutional discrimination.
Because Mamdani was naturalized in 2018, the only legal way his citizenship could be revoked is if the government proved in federal court that he obtained citizenship through fraud or willful misrepresentation — a high burden requiring clear evidence (8 U.S.C. § 1451).
There is no legal basis in the statements quoted for such a claim.
Thus, deporting him or revoking his citizenship for being a “communist,” for his political views, or because political opponents dislike him would be unconstitutional, unlawful under federal statute, and directly barred by Supreme Court precedent.