Representative Andy Ogles, a hard-right Tennessee Republican, on Thursday used Islamophobic language on social media to refer to Zohran Mamdani, the presumptive Democratic nominee for New York City mayor, and said he should be deported.
Representative Nancy Mace, Republican of South Carolina, implied that Mr. Mamdani was somehow tied to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, which occurred when he was 9. That came after Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, reacted on Wednesday to Mr. Mamdani’s apparent victory with an edited image of the Statue of Liberty clothed in a burqa.
The responses to Mr. Mamdani’s electoral triumph were the latest examples of how far-right Republicans in Congress have become overt in their use of bigoted language and ethnically offensive tropes, in both casual comments and official statements.
Mr. Mamdani, a three-term New York State assemblyman who is all but certain to win the Democratic primary for mayor, was born in Uganda and has lived in New York City since 1998, when he was 7 years old. He was naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 2018 and, if elected, would become the city’s first Muslim mayor.
There is no credible evidence to suggest Mr. Mamdani is not, or shouldn’t be, a U.S. citizen. But his shock win put him on the national radar, and some Republicans in Congress are now seeking to undermine him using a strategy similar to the racist one that Donald J. Trump employed against former President Barack Obama by questioning whether he was born in the United States.
In a letter addressed to Attorney General Pam Bondi, Mr. Ogles requested that the Justice Department open an investigation into whether Mr. Mamdani should be subject to “denaturalization proceedings” over rap lyrics Mr. Ogles claimed expressed solidarity with individuals convicted of terrorism-related offenses, before he was a U.S. citizen.
Ms. Mace posted a picture of Mr. Mamdani in traditional South Asian attire greeting fellow Muslims and wrote: “After 9/11 we said ‘Never Forget.’ I think we sadly have forgotten.”
Some Democrats condemned the comments and expressed outrage, although they have learned not to expect any response. And their denunciations of racist attacks typically disappear into a morass of polarized content on social media.
“We saw this kind of shameful, offensive, fear-mongering in 2008,” Representative Ro Khanna, Democrat of California, wrote on social media. “I hope Dems and decent Rs will call this garbage out.”
But the kind of language that Mr. Ogles used on social media and the questions he raised in his letter these days have become commonplace among some Republicans. And they almost always go without any real condemnation from G.O.P. leaders.
On Thursday, a spokesman for Speaker Mike Johnson did not respond to a request for comment on Mr. Ogles’ statements.
Mr. Ogles did not invent the deportation attack on Mr. Mamdani, although he added his own twist. Earlier this month, a Republican city councilwoman from Queens called for Mr. Mamdani to be deported.
“Death threats. Islamophobic bigotry. Now a sitting council member calling for my deportation. Enough,” Mr. Mamdani responded then on social media. “This is what Trump and his sycophants have wrought.” His campaign did not respond to a request for comment about Mr. Ogles’s letter.
In the hours after Mr. Mamdani’s victory, while progressives were still celebrating, Senator Tommy Tuberville, Republican of Alabama, appeared on a right-wing podcast where he was pressed on how Mr. Trump could respond to the fact that a Democratic Socialist had apparently prevailed in the New York City race.
He, too, made racist comments in response, lamenting New York City’s high concentration of undocumented immigrants and referring to them as vermin who “live off the federal government.”
Annie Karni is a congressional correspondent for The Times. She writes features and profiles, with a recent focus on House Republican leadership.
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