As Mayor, How Can Mamdani Advance Immigrant Wellbeing?

On January 1, Zohran Mamdani will take the oath of office and become the 111th mayor of New York City. In his campaign victory speech on election night, Mamdani enthusiastically declared that “New York will remain a city of immigrants: a city built by immigrants, powered by immigrants and, as of tonight, led by an immigrant.”

Not surprisingly, Mamdani’s election and his pro-immigrant rhetoric have raised high expectations among immigrant community advocates. Can New York City effectively promote immigrant wellbeing—not just by running interference to restrain federal deportations but also by helping immigrants obtain stable jobs, secure affordable housing, and enjoy dignified living conditions?

In interviews with NPQ, several advocates offered their takes on how Mamdani can, while advancing his overall agenda, also effectively advance immigrant wellbeing, including through supporting domestic worker rights, using labor enforcement to stop wage theft, creating opportunities for immigrant participation in governance, and advancing Mamdani’s core affordability agenda.

Supporting Domestic Workers

Tatiana Bejar is director of local organizing programs at the National Domestic Workers Alliance. She emphasized to NPQ that Mamdani’s victory rests on a working‑class, pro‑immigrant agenda, opening opportunities for strengthening labor rights in sectors such as domestic work.

“Over the past 15 years, organizing efforts led most intensively by the [National] Domestic Workers Alliance, together with our affiliated organizations and chapters, have advanced more rights at the local level, including in New York City,” Bejar affirmed. “Among them are protections against discrimination, fundamental in this sector, and paid sick days, two of the most important achievements directly impacting domestic workers today. However, significant gaps remain, especially regarding the effective implementation and enforcement of these protections.”

Mamdani has also advocated for the expansion of community-based and cooperative economic models. Recognizing worker and consumer cooperatives as legitimate spaces of economic and political participation would be a key step that could improve immigrant wellbeing. For example, the nation’s largest cooperative, Cooperative Home Care Associates, is based in the Bronx and employs a workforce of over 1,600 people, the majority of whom are immigrant women.

Enforcing Labor Law

Another strategy for improving immigrant wellbeing is labor law enforcement. Rosanna Rodríguez, co‑executive director of the Laundry Workers Center in New York, stressed the importance of ensuring that laws are effectively enforced and that responsible agencies have sufficient resources and staff to investigate cases and protect workers.

Rodríguez explained to NPQ that enforcement should not depend solely on individuals filing complaints, since “many people are afraid to denounce.” She cited collaboration with the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development, where the center shared data from an investigation into the laundry industry that led to the creation of an enforcement unit. That unit investigated directly without requiring individual complaints, reviewed more than 99 laundromats statewide, and recovered over $200,000 in stolen wages, while businesses also were assessed $216,000 in penalties. For Rodríguez, the most alarming finding was that “70 percent of employers in that industry were in violation” of labor laws.

Standing Up to the Federal Government

Reverend Juan Carlos Ruiz, pastor of the Lutheran Church El Buen Pastor in Brooklyn, a church widely recognized for its defense of immigrants, told NPQ, “We hope that the sovereignty of…New York, which is a sanctuary city, will resume these proposals of protection for our communities.”

According to the Queens Chronicle, Mamdani pledged in his campaign to make New York City “the strongest sanctuary city in the country.” Most immigration policy, of course, is set by the federal government.

However, the city does have some levers. The Queens paper noted that “the Mamdani administration plans to invest $165 million in funding for immigration legal defense services, as well as protect and expand programs such as the Rapid Response Legal Collaborative.”

Empowering Immigrants in Governance and Coalitions

Mamdani’s administration could also facilitate forms of governance—such as community boards and participatory budgeting, which offer forms of representation that do not screen for citizenship but instead recognize that all who live in the city belong and should have a say in decisions that affect them.

Additionally, Mamdani’s administration can also collaborate with nonprofit allies. A network of 16 nonprofits is organized in a coalition known as the Citywide Immigrant Legal Empowerment Collaborative (CILEC). A steering committee comprised of four community-based organizations and four legal service providers coordinates action and advocates with the city government on behalf of the group.

Statewide, the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC) represents over 200 immigrant and refugee rights groups, including grassroots and nonprofit community organizations, religious and academic institutions, labor unions, and legal and economic justice groups.

A City of Immigrants, a City of Workers

New York City is home to about three million immigrants, according to a 2024 city report. Many work in essential sectors such as construction, hospitality, restaurants, cleaning, and domestic care—activities that often offer low wages and precarious conditions. All told, immigrants make up nearly 40 percent of New York City’s workforce, underscoring their central role in the city’s economy.

Because immigrants represent such a broad swathe of New Yorkers, many of the core affordability initiatives that Mamdani has advanced—such as freezing rent on the city’s nearly one million rent-stabilized units, building hundreds of thousands of units of new affordable housing, creating free bus routes, and providing universal childcare—could, in fact, prove to be of great benefit to immigrant New Yorkers.

Simply put, New York workers and immigrants are often the same people. The struggle for immigrant justice is intersectional.

Building on this context, Rodríguez emphasized to NPQ that the incoming Mamdani administration can often be most effective in improving immigrant wellbeing by promoting initiatives and laws that support both working-class and immigrant New Yorkers.

She added, “We understand there will be challenges at the federal and even state level against what he proposes, but I know that at the city level initiatives and laws can be passed by Mamdani’s administration that benefit the working-class and immigrant communities.”