New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is facing renewed scrutiny after hosting a highly controversial guest at the official mayoral residence during Ramadan. Mahmoud Khalil, a Syrian-born activist who has been accused by federal officials of sympathizing with Hamas, attended a dinner at Gracie Mansion alongside his wife and young son.
The mayor publicly celebrated the gathering on social media, posting a photo of the evening and praising Khalil in glowing terms. In the post, Mamdani wrote that he and his wife, Rama Duwaji, were “honored” to welcome Khalil, his wife Noor, and their son Deen to break their fast together during the holy month of Ramadan.
The dinner also marked what Mamdani described as the one-year anniversary of Khalil’s detention by federal authorities.
“Last night, as we marked the one year anniversary of his detention, Rama and I were honored to welcome Mahmoud, Noor, and their son Deen to Gracie Mansion to break our fast together,” Mamdani wrote on Instagram.
The image accompanying the post shows Khalil seated at the table smiling broadly while eating, with the mayor’s wife standing nearby holding a plate of food.
Khalil, a former Columbia University graduate student, was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement early last year. Federal officials accused him of committing fraud on his green card application, placing him at risk of deportation. The Trump administration also argued that Khalil’s views and public activism could threaten U.S. foreign policy interests, invoking a rarely used legal statute that allows noncitizens to be deported for such concerns.
The case quickly became a flashpoint in the broader debate surrounding campus activism, immigration enforcement, and the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Critics point to Khalil’s own remarks about the October 7, 2023 Hamas terror attacks against Israel as particularly troubling. In an interview with The New York Times, Khalil appeared to frame the massacre as an inevitable escalation in the Palestinian struggle.
Days after two muslim cockroaches tried to bomb Christians outside Gracie Mansion, NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani hosted anti-Israel activist Mahmoud Khalil and his family for a Ramadan fast-breaking at the mayoral residence pic.twitter.com/htj41B1848
— Unlimited L’s (@unlimited_ls) March 10, 2026
“Unfortunately, we couldn’t avoid such a moment,” he said when asked about the attack.
“To me, it felt frightening that we had to reach this moment in the Palestinian struggle,” he added.
The White House condemned the comments at the time, arguing that they minimized the brutality of the Hamas assault that left more than a thousand Israelis dead and triggered a major regional conflict.
Despite the backlash, Mamdani has repeatedly defended Khalil, portraying him as a victim of political persecution. In his latest post, the mayor described Khalil’s past year as one marked by both “profound hardship” and “profound courage.”
“New Yorkers raising their voices in solidarity. A city refusing to look away,” Mamdani wrote. “Mahmoud won his freedom, and a father was finally reunited with his child.”
Khalil’s son was born while the activist was still being held in ICE custody at a federal detention facility in Louisiana. The child will turn one year old on April 21.
After spending three months in detention, a three-judge panel in New Jersey ruled that Khalil should have been allowed to continue navigating the immigration process outside federal custody, leading to his release.
Since then, Khalil has remained active in pro-Palestinian demonstrations across New York City. At one rally, he quoted alleged Hamas terrorist and Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif, who was killed in an Israeli missile strike last year.
“The time is now,” Khalil told the crowd. “The bridges towards liberation start with us.”
Mamdani’s decision to host Khalil at Gracie Mansion now adds another combustible chapter to an already explosive political controversy unfolding in the nation’s largest city.
