According to a report by the Times of Israel on Sunday 4 January, 2026, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has previously said he would seek the arrest of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over an International Criminal Court warrant, sharply criticized the US operation that led to the detention of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife.
The two are expected to be transferred to New York to face federal charges, a move that Mamdani framed as dangerously provocative. Writing on X, the mayor argued that the action crossed a serious line, calling it an unlawful use of force rather than a legitimate legal process. “Unilaterally attacking a sovereign nation is an act of war and a violation of federal and international law,” he wrote, adding that the episode amounted to “this blatant pursuit of regime change.”
And yet, Mamdani’s own rhetoric around Netanyahu sits on shaky legal ground. The United States is not a member of the International Criminal Court, meaning the ICC has no jurisdiction inside the country. On top of that, federal law bars local authorities from assisting the court in carrying out arrests.
There is another obstacle as well. Separate US statutes prohibit the detention of foreign officials, including sitting heads of state, and ban actions that would obstruct them in their official capacity. Taken together, those laws sharply limit what any city official can actually do, regardless of political statements or public pressure.
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