Families of September 11 victims have gathered nearly 17,000 signatures demanding New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani stay away from this year's 25th anniversary commemoration, and the mayor says he's coming anyway.
Giovianni Galante, whose 29-year-old wife Grace Catherine Galante was killed in the al-Qaeda attacks on the World Trade Center, launched a Change.org petition calling on Mamdani to skip the ceremony. As of this week, the New York Post reported the petition had collected at least 16,889 signatures. When asked whether he would honor the families' request, Mamdani made clear he would not.
The mayor's refusal to step aside sets up a confrontation between the city's chief executive and the people who lost the most on September 11, 2001, 2,977 lives, and a grief that has not faded in a quarter century.
The petition does not simply object to Mamdani's party affiliation or ideology. It lays out specific concerns about his conduct and the people he has placed in positions of authority. Petitioners point to Mamdani's reluctance to condemn the phrase "globalize the intifada" and to his appointment of Ramzi Kassem as his chief counsel. Kassem previously represented Ahmed al-Darbi, described in the petition as an al-Qaeda tanker bombing pilot.
Fox News reported that families also cited Mamdani's association with a Brooklyn imam who hosted the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, as well as writings by Mamdani's father that drew a moral equivalency between the United States and al-Qaeda and argued that suicide bombers should be "understood as a feature of modern political violence."
Those are not abstract policy disagreements. For families who watched the towers fall, a mayor who surrounds himself with figures tied, even at a legal or intellectual remove, to the ideology behind the attacks is not a neutral presence at Ground Zero.
The petition's own language frames the stakes plainly. It states that the 25th anniversary "is one of remembrance grounded in shared American values: respect for the victims, recognition of the gravity of the attacks, and a clear rejection of the ideologies that contributed to such violence."
A separate passage from the petition, as Newsmax reported, declared the ceremony "is not a platform for those connected to such views." Newsmax also noted that the 9/11 Memorial and Museum's standing policy admits every sitting mayor regardless of political affiliation, meaning Mamdani would likely attend no matter how many signatures the petition collects.
John Feal, a first responder who spent eleven weeks in the hospital after the attacks, told the Post that the families' wishes should come first. Feal did not hold back about the mayor's standing with the 9/11 community.
"If they're gonna be upset by his presence, and that they're not gonna get that day or a few hours to heal and to hear the loved one's name without seeing his face, then I support that 100 %."
Feal added a broader warning: "When you p*** off and upset the 9/11 community, it's a problem."
Petition signees left their own comments. A first responder identified only as Debra wrote: "Stay home, please. And ensure your wife does the same. That in itself would be a service to this city." Another signee, Mark, who said he lost twelve friends in the attacks, wrote: "The current NYC mayor has not earned the privilege of being in the company of such magnificent Americans. Stay away, Mamdani."
Those are not political operatives. They are people who carried bodies, breathed toxic dust, and buried friends. Their objection is personal, and it is specific to this mayor's record.
When questioned, Mamdani offered a statement that read more like a press release than a direct answer to the families' concerns:
"I will proudly honor the families, the survivors, the first responders forever impacted by that horrific terror attack, by standing alongside them at this year's 9/11 commemoration, reaffirming that we will never forget the solemn day felt by all of us who call this city home, and frankly, by all of us who call this country home."
The statement invokes the families and first responders, the same people who are asking him not to come. It does not address the petition's specific objections: his reluctance to condemn "globalize the intifada," his hiring of Kassem, or his associations with a controversial imam. He pledges to stand "alongside" people who have formally asked him to stay away.
That gap between the mayor's words and the families' wishes is the heart of this story. Nearly 17,000 people signed a petition asking one thing. The mayor heard them and said the opposite. The Washington Examiner reported that petition organizers plan to ask the New York City Council to intervene and block Mamdani's participation, a sign that the effort is escalating, not winding down. The Examiner also noted the petition had by its count surpassed 25,000 signatures.
Mamdani is no stranger to being publicly rebuked. Earlier this year, President Trump directly overruled him after the mayor floated arresting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on U.S. soil under an International Criminal Court warrant, a threat that Netanyahu's own office publicly dismissed.
The petition did not emerge in a vacuum. Just The News reported that the effort described Mamdani, the first Muslim mayor of New York City, as an "unwelcome guest," citing his past statements and political associations as disqualifying factors. The outlet noted that roughly 300 family members of 9/11 victims were among the signees.
Mamdani's record on related matters has drawn sustained criticism. He stayed silent for hours after suspected antisemitic stabbings in the city while posting about housing taxes. His defiance of a Supreme Court immigration ruling prompted even Senator John Fetterman to warn that Mamdani was inviting a constitutional crisis, criticism from a fellow Democrat, not a Republican adversary.
Each episode follows the same arc: Mamdani takes a position that aligns with a narrow ideological constituency, draws broad public backlash, and responds with boilerplate language about unity that never addresses the substance of the objection.
The 25th anniversary of September 11 is less than two months away. The families who started this petition are not asking for a policy change or a political concession. They are asking the mayor of the city that lost the most on that day to read the room, to recognize that his associations, his appointments, and his silences have disqualified him from standing at the microphone while the names of 2,977 dead Americans are read aloud.
Mamdani's answer, stripped of its polish, amounts to four words: I'm coming anyway.
A city that honors its dead should listen to the living who loved them, not to the politician who can't explain why he won't condemn the ideology that took them.
