Aber Kawas claims that her activism began when her illegal alien father was deported after being arrested for a crime in New Jersey. Now she’s Zohran Mamdani’s first endorsement.

Kawas had described Fahad Hashmi, convicted of providing material support to Al Qaeda, and the Hamas fundraisers known as the ‘Holy Land 5” as “imprisoned heroes” and “living martyrs”. (Mamdani had previously also expressed his support for the jailed Hamas fundraisers.)

“A father of a friend, a brother of a friend, a cousin of a friend, a friend of a friend- from Fahad Hashmi, to the Holy Land 5, Tarek Mahena, or Muhammad Soltan, ect., sometimes it really strikes me how little of a degree of separation we all have to these imprisoned heroes. I often reflect about how in a more just world these names would not have just been headlines to me; I would have probably met them, organized with them, or even visited their households,” the Islamist activist backed by Mamdani and the DSA to represent a Latino district wrote.