Overview:
In an interview with The Haitian Instances, Assemblymember and mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani discusses his plans to develop hire protections, enhance public companies, and push again towards ICE enforcement. He outlines how his insurance policies would help neighborhoods like Flatbush, house to many Haitian New Yorkers, and ship long-overdue funding to the town’s working-class communities.
Editor’s observe: This interview has been condensed and a few responses paraphrased for size and formatting.
As a tenant organizer and New York State Meeting member, Zohran Mamdani has spent years working alongside immigrant communities in Brooklyn, together with Haitian New Yorkers. In an interview with The Haitian Instances, the mayoral candidate, who at the moment represents Meeting District 36 in Astoria, Queens, mentioned how these experiences have formed his views on justice, housing, and metropolis governance.
Mamdani emphasised that his marketing campaign is about redistributing energy and investing in communities like Flatbush which have lengthy confronted systemic disinvestment.
The Haitian Instances: What are your high three priorities?
Zohran Mamdani: This marketing campaign is constructed across the promise to make New York Metropolis extra reasonably priced—particularly for the working class who’ve constructed and sustained this metropolis, and but are being priced out.
From the start, I’ve laid out three opening commitments that we might make. The primary one was to freeze the hire for over two million rent-stabilized tenants, who earn a median earnings of $60,000 and have confronted hike after hike below the Adams administration. The second is to remodel our buses—the slowest within the nation—by making them quick and free. The third is to ship common childcare for households with children from six weeks to 5 years outdated, constructing on the success of common pre-Okay and the glimpse of 3-K earlier than Eric Adams snatched it away from us.
THT: How have your interactions been like with the Haitian neighborhood in New York Metropolis?
Mamdani:
I’ve been proud to work with Haitian leaders like Assemblywoman Farah Souffrant Forrest. The Haitian neighborhood represents each the promise of freedom and the fact of betrayal—TPS being one instance. I’ve seen firsthand how Little Haiti has been impacted by gradual buses and underfunded childcare. After I converse concerning the necessity for making our buses quick and free, it’s additionally one thing born out of the teachings of Little Haiti and Brooklyn at giant, which has the second slowest buses in New York Metropolis. One other core factor that I’ve discovered that issues to Haitian New Yorkers and to all New Yorkers is public security. And that’s one thing that each New Yorker deserves to really feel. It’s the naked minimal,
Q: What would you say to individuals who fear that free buses shall be much less secure or stuffed with unhoused individuals?
Zohran Mamdani:
We heard these considerations throughout our fare-free bus pilot—however they didn’t come true. Actually, we noticed a virtually 39% drop in assaults on bus operators. Our pilot reveals buses improved security, lowered automobile use and may also help the 1 in 5 New Yorkers who can’t afford the fare.
THT: What would you do to enhance sanitation companies in neighborhoods like Flatbush which might be nonetheless struggling post-pandemic?
Mamdani:
Not like Mayor Adams, I’d not threaten layoffs or take away rubbish cans from corners. Each New Yorker deserves a clear metropolis, and that begins with totally funding sanitation. It’s additionally important for combating the town’s rat drawback, which impacts neighborhoods throughout the 5 boroughs.
THT: How would you defend Haitian and different immigrant New Yorkers from ICE raids?
Mamdani:
As mayor, I’d implement current legal guidelines that bar ICE from getting into faculties, hospitals, and metropolis property with out a judicial warrant. I’d additionally create a fee to make sure full compliance throughout metropolis businesses and contractors, and develop the Haitian Response Initiative inside the Mayor’s Workplace of Immigrant Affairs. We should lead with braveness, not cowardice.
THT: Anything you’d wish to say to the Haitian neighborhood?
Mamdani:
I’d be the primary immigrant mayor in generations. I perceive what it’s wish to be seen as suspect by the state. Haitian New Yorkers deserve security, stability, and a metropolis that sees their humanity. I’d battle for authorized illustration for all going through ICE detention, as a result of it will increase their likelihood of staying with their households by 11 instances.