NEW YORK CITY Republican Council Member, Vickie Paladino, faces firestorm after calling for ‘expulsion of Muslims’ from the country

In response to the horrific antisemitic terror attack in Sydney, Australia, Councilwoman Vickie Paladino wrote on Sunday that the world is experiencing a “global jihad” and argued that governments should begin expelling Muslims or imposing “severe sanctions” on them within Western countries.

NY Post Queens Republican Councilwoman Vickie Paladino is facing a firestorm from Democrats over social media posts she made calling for the “expulsion of Muslims” in the wake of the Bondi Beach terrorist attack in Australia.

Paladino took down the posts in question after facing outrage from fellow local elected officials, including Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, who ripped the comments as Islamophobic.

“We’re in the midst of a global jihad the likes of which the world has never seen, and we cannot ignore it,” Paladino had written on X after 15 people were killed and 40 others injured at a celebration of the Jewish Hannukah holiday on Sunday.

The “X” post had been removed, though Paladino’s X account continues to feature anti-Muslim content.

Paladino, who also shared a post that said “These Evil Islam ANIMALS hate everybody,” called the outrage an affront on the First Amendment, despite apparently agreeing to scrub the comment from her account.

“It’s been clear for a while that progressives don’t value freedom of speech, but I find it very funny that they’re so apocalyptic about this tweet, while their own social media accounts and those of their leftist allies in the DSA spew some of the most toxic, violent, and anti-American rhetoric on a daily basis,” she said in a statement.

“Once again progressives are acting like the PR wing and defense attorneys for radical Islam after a wave of terror attacks, and the West is going to have to deal with this dangerous reality soon enough.”

Council Member Vickie Paladino has stood by controversial comments calling for the deportation of Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani after several Queens elected officials rebuked the Republican Council Member for “xenophobic” comments.

QNS.com Paladino questioned Mamdani’s pathway to US citizenship in a post on X on Monday night. Paladino posted a photograph of a t-shirt bearing the slogan “Deport Zohran” alongside the caption “New Merch Drop?”

Quoting a post from October 2019, Paladino highlighted that Mamdani had stated he was unable to vote in the 2016 presidential election because he was not yet a U.S. citizen. Paladino argued that it is “insane” for someone who has not been a citizen for ten years to seek major public office and went on to call for Mamdani’s deportation.

“We need to take very seriously the need to begin the expulsion of Muslims from western nations, or at the very least the severe sanction of them within western borders,” the posts said, adding that action needed to be taken to prevent “another 9/11 or worse.”

Outgoing City Comptroller Brad Lander called for the council to launch proceedings to censure Paladino “this week.”  “This is disgusting — and utterly unacceptable. There are nearly 1 million Muslim New Yorkers. Our neighbors, friends, co-workers, teachers, and our Mayor-elect,” he wrote on X.

In recent months, she has drawn criticism for doubling down on calls for the deportation of Zohran Mamdani, who will be sworn in as NYC’s first Muslim mayor next month. In a subsequent post, Paladino described Mamdani’s path to citizenship as “sketchy to say the least.”

Former City Comptroller Scott Stringer, who is also running for mayor, said calls to deport an elected official “because you disagree with him” is dangerous rhetoric. He also described Paladino’s comments as “un-American” and called on her to apologize.

Paladino, however, released a statement standing by her comments.

She noted that Mamdani has “clearly achieved US citizenship and is not eligible for deportation,” but said the “fact remains” that he would have been removed from the US before obtaining his citizenship under the Trump Administration.

Paladino said Mamdani has founded a chapter of the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) organization, which she labeled as a “Hamas-adjacent” group that disseminates “terror propaganda.” Mamdani is a co-founder of the Bowdoin College chapter of the organization.

Paladino criticized Mamdani for failing to disavow SJP and said his mayoral campaign underscored the “crucial need” of the Trump Administration’s deportation program.

“Zohran Mamdani and his supporters are a plague on our politics,” Paladino wrote in a statement. “His radical agenda, laced with antisemitism, Marxism, and anti-Americanism, has gained traction with the very segment of our city that’s been responsible for years of chaos and violence against our Jewish community.”

Paladino said her office has been “inundated” with threats from Mamdani supporters since she called for Mamdani’s deportation in the original post on Monday night, stating that she now has police stationed at her office and her home for her protection.

Great to be on Fox News this afternoon to talk about the NYC mayor’s race and the disaster we’re facing if Zohran gets his way here.

Economics, public safety, private property, zoning — we’re facing a comprehensive collapse like nothing we’ve ever seen here. We bounced back… pic.twitter.com/mNbJ04H3TP

— Councilwoman Vickie Paladino (@VickieforNYC) July 18, 2025