New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani is promising a massive expansion of government-funded legal defense for immigrants facing deportation, pledging more than $100 million in new spending and 200 additional city law employees if elected.
The self-described democratic socialist made the announcement during a September 2025 appearance on MSNBC’s “The Weekend: Primetime,” framing the proposal as a public-safety measure and a defense of New York City’s sanctuary policies.
Mamdani opened with a striking claim about the scale of the problem. “400,000 of our residents are right now in urgent risk of deportation,” he said, arguing the city has both a moral and practical obligation to help those residents stay.
According to a report on his remarks, Mamdani cited city data suggesting that immigrants who receive legal assistance are dramatically more likely to avoid deportation. “The city knows that when it provides legal assistance to those same New Yorkers, their chances of going home increase elevenfold,” he said.
But he argued the current effort falls far short. “It has only assisted fewer than 200 of those New Yorkers,” Mamdani said, using that gap to justify the dramatic proposed increase in funding.
His plan has two main components. First, he wants to hire 200 additional employees for the city’s Law Department, bringing staffing back to pre-pandemic levels. I would also commit to increasing the staffing of our law department by 200 to bring us back to pre-COVID levels,” he said. Second, he is proposing to pour more than $100 million in new money into legal defense services specifically aimed at fighting deportations.
Mamdani tied both commitments directly to the city’s sanctuary status, presenting the policies not as resistance to federal law but as core public-safety infrastructure. Our campaign is one that stands by the actual enforcement of the law as it is here in New York City, with sanctuary city policies that have kept us safe,” he said.
He described the expanded legal operation as a way to keep families intact. “We are using every tool at our disposal to keep New Yorkers together, to keep families together,” he said.
Mamdani closed the segment with a sweeping promise about the city’s identity. He said the spending was necessary “so that we can ensure we’re taking every step we can to keep New Yorkers safe, to keep New Yorkers together, and to show the world that they are welcome in this city.”
He did not outline during the appearance where the $100 million would come from or provide a detailed breakdown of how the funds would be distributed across specific programs.