Faiza Ali pictured on the closing acknowledged assembly of the 2022–2025 legislative session, presided over by Council Speaker Adrienne Adams.
Photograph by Gerardo Romo / NYC Council Media Unit
Mayor Zohran Mamdani will appoint Faiza Ali as commissioner of the Mayor’s Workplace of Immigrant Affairs (MOIA) on Tuesday, New York News has discovered — bringing into his administration a long-time ally and a Metropolis Council veteran to steer the workplace at a crucial second for immigrant New Yorkers.
Ali, the daughter of Pakistani immigrants and raised in Brooklyn, most just lately served on Mamdani’s transition committee on authorities operations. On the Council, she rose from neighborhood liaison in 2014 to director of the Group Engagement Division, earlier than serving as first deputy chief of employees to former Council Speaker Adrienne Adams. She reportedly left that function voluntarily the day earlier than the primary acknowledged assembly of the yr, as Council Speaker Julie Menin took over and applied staffing adjustments.
She additionally beforehand labored on the Arab American Affiliation of New York, served as director of neighborhood affairs at CAIR-NY, and co-founded the Muslim Democratic Membership of New York, the place she organized alongside Mamdani. The mayor final month chosen one other co-founder of the progressive group, his longtime advisor and election lawyer, Ali Najmi, to chair the Mayor’s Advisory Committee on the Judiciary.
Ali known as her appointment to steer MOIA an honor and mentioned she is dedicated to making sure immigrants throughout the town can dwell and work with dignity.
“I am the proud daughter of immigrant parents from Pakistan who came to New York City with courage, an unshakable belief in possibility, and the determination to build a future here. This city gave us opportunity, stability, and the chance to put down roots, just as it has for generations of immigrants before us,” Ali mentioned. “New York City is not just home to immigrants, it is powered by them.”
A 2012 profile of Ali in The New York Instances highlighted her early work as a faith-based neighborhood organizer, educated via Bend the Arc, a progressive Jewish group, and embedded with Brooklyn Congregations United, a coalition largely composed of Christian church buildings.
Ali’s management and advocacy have additionally earned recognition, together with a spot on Crain’s New York Enterprise “40 Under 40” record in 2022, which famous her as the primary Muslim American lady to function the Council speaker’s first deputy chief of employees. Each publications recounted how an incident of harassment shortly after 9/11 formed her dedication to civic engagement and described her method to management as grounded in relationship-building and dialogue.
‘Escalating attacks and uncertainty’
Fashioned by voters in 2001, MOIA is a significant hub for representing the town’s immigrant communities, serving to form insurance policies that have an effect on almost two in 5 New Yorkers.
Ali succeeds Manuel Castro, who led MOIA all through former Mayor Eric Adams’ single time period and was the primary previously undocumented individual to carry the publish.
Castro’s closing yr in workplace unfolded amid political friction between Adams and President Donald Trump’s administration over sanctuary metropolis insurance policies. Castro gave the impression to be muted by Metropolis Corridor throughout a March 2025 funds listening to, the place council members pressed him to reply to components of Trump’s deportation agenda.
Castro declined to straight criticize federal coverage and mentioned he was following orders. On the time, Adams was embroiled in disputes with the Trump administration over immigration, months earlier than Trump’s Justice Division dropped federal corruption costs in opposition to him.
In December 2025, Castro testified in his private capability in assist of a Metropolis Council invoice that may enable people to sue the town for violations of its sanctuary legal guidelines. Though MOIA and different businesses have been invited to testify, no Metropolis Corridor officers appeared of their official capacities. Castro acknowledged that the administration decides who speaks on its behalf.
Former Mayor Eric Adams after which Mayor’s Workplace of Immigrant Affairs Commissioner Manuel Castro at a 2023 rally in Foley Sq., urging the White Home to let migrants work. Photograph by Ed Reed/Mayoral Pictures Workplace
Ali assumes the function of MOIA commissioner at a time when immigrant advocacy teams and metropolis officers are navigating federal enforcement pressures, challenges to sanctuary protections, and the necessity to guarantee metropolis companies attain New Yorkers from various backgrounds. As commissioner, Metropolis Corridor mentioned Ali will first give attention to making metropolis applications and advantages extra accessible to non-English-speaking residents and collaborating with different businesses to guard immigrants throughout all 5 boroughs.
“I am committed to building a city that ensures every New Yorker, regardless of when they arrived or where they were born, can live, work, and raise families with dignity,” mentioned Ali.
Mayor Mamdani credited Ali’s background and expertise as making her well-suited to steer the workplace amid the present local weather, noting that she understands “firsthand the promise and the precarity that define the immigrant experience in New York.”
“At a time when immigrant New Yorkers face escalating attacks and uncertainty, this administration will not equivocate. We will defend our neighbors. We will expand access to services. And we will ensure that New York City remains a place where immigrants are not merely welcomed in words, but protected in policy, supported in practice, and able to live and work with the dignity they deserve,” Hizzoner mentioned.
Mamdani has made immigrant protections a central early focus of his administration, signing an govt order earlier this month to reaffirm and strengthen New York Metropolis’s sanctuary metropolis insurance policies by limiting cooperation with federal immigration enforcement, barring ICE from metropolis property and not using a judicial warrant, increasing privateness safeguards, and launching multilingual “Know Your Rights” outreach amid heightened federal enforcement efforts.
The identical govt order additionally directs metropolis businesses to audit their interactions with federal immigration authorities and establishes a brand new interagency response committee to coordinate metropolis responses to main enforcement actions.
Politico first reported on Monday that Mayor Mamdani will title former Biden administration official Bitta Mostofi to steer audits of six municipal businesses, together with the NYPD, for potential lapses in compliance with sanctuary protections. Metropolis Corridor didn’t formally verify alternative of Mostofi, who served as MOIA commissioner beneath Invoice de Blasio.
