Last week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the United States is launching an effort to dismantle the threat the International Criminal Court poses to American sovereignty. The ICC, Rubio correctly argues, claims authority to prosecute and imprison American servicemen and officials despite the incontrovertible fact that the United States is not a member.
“If we stand idle, all of them will be at the mercy of foreign judges, thousands of miles away,” Rubio said of U.S. servicemen and agents facing constant risk of prosecution, and even imprisonment, for the so-called crime of defending their own country. President Donald Trump has twice sanctioned the ICC, calling it an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to American national security.
This was never a partisan issue. Democrats and Republicans alike refused to join the Rome Statute, declining to surrender American sovereignty to an opaque foreign tribunal.
That held until New York City elected a so-called “democratic socialist” as its mayor. While the city is literally under water and Jewish New Yorkers are harassed and shouted out of coffee shops, Mayor Zohran Mamdani is making world headlines announcing that he is exploring his authority to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he arrives for the United Nations General Assembly in September.
He has none.
First, the United States — like Israel — is not a party to the Rome Statute. ICC arrest warrants have no legal effect on American soil. New York, last I checked, is still a part of the United States. Second, if the United States were ever to move against a sitting foreign leader, that would be an act of foreign policy — a power the Constitution commits exclusively to the federal government, and one that has never in our history belonged to a municipal executive. Third, heads of government attending the United Nations enjoy immunity under federal law and under the treaty obligations this country assumed when it invited the U.N. to sit in Manhattan. It is worth noting that the United Nations has held its General Assembly in New York City since 1946. This is the first time in history that a mayor of the city is “exploring” arresting a visiting head of state.
So no, the mayor cannot arrest the prime minister of Israel. The mayor cannot effectuate anyone’s arrest. And a mayor who directs the New York Police Department to seize a foreign head of government would not be enforcing the law; he would be breaking it. Mamdani’s threat to use the city’s police force in direct contravention of federal law should scare all Americans. If Mamdani dares to direct the NYPD to act on this threat, it is Mamdani who should be visited by the U.S. Department of Justice.
Sorry, Zohran. You may be trying to turn New York into a banana republic, but we remain a nation of laws. New York City is part of this nation, and you are not a dictator.
Still, Democrats are either cheering him on or excusing him, having discovered they are suddenly a “big tent” party with enough room for socialists, communists, Islamists, and even a Senate candidate who once sported a Nazi tattoo on his chest. I am confident the Trump administration will cut this exploit short and provide federal protection for the prime minister during his visit.
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Do not mistake this for distraction. Mamdani promised to arrest Netanyahu in December of 2024, before he had a city to run or a flood to explain. One week into office, he signed an executive order stripping New York of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism. Now the streets are underwater, Jews are the majority of this city’s hate crime victims, and the mayor is focused on the prime minister of Israel.
The far-left takeover of America continues. Fight back, America.
Gabe Groisman is the former mayor of Bal Harbour, Florida, an attorney and government affairs consultant, and host of the Standpoint podcast. He recently interviewed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.