Mamdani-tied socialists, CCP-tied groups lead war against Trump on ICE shooting and Maduro arrest

The Democratic Socialists of America — for whom New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is a vocal supporter — and a Chinese Communist Party-linked activist network are leading a two-front resistance effort against President Donald Trump, with street protests seeking to blend efforts opposing ICE with the arrest of Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro.

The coordinated organizational effort by the DSA and affiliated protest groups is fueled in large part by funding from CCP-linked wealthy Marxist businessman Neville Singham. That network produced a new slogan over the past few days — “No Wars. No Kings. No ICE.” — which sought to unite far-left protesters in their anti-Trump outrage and to encourage mass protests.

The DSA listed protest co-organizers for this weekend’s protest, including the Singham-linked, Marxist revolutionary activist group known as the People’s Forum, among other groups. The People's Forum posted the same graphic about the Maduro and ICE-related protests on Saturday as did the DSA.

Singham to be a target of congressional subpoena

The DSA also posted a message from a local DSA branch saying the group’s “Fuck ICE” and “Hands Off Venezuela” protests were being coordinated with Communist-oriented Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), which in turn closely coordinates with the People’s Forum and is also tied into the network funded by Singham.

The GOP-led House Oversight Committee voted on Thursday to authorize a subpoena to Singham for information about this sprawling activist network.

The DSA, the PSL, and the People’s Forum did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mixing ICE in Minnesota with Maduro's arrest

“Saturday, Trump invaded Venezuela, sacrificing lives for oil,” the NYC branch of the DSA said in a Thursday tweet. “Four days later, ICE forces invading Minneapolis murdered a legal observer recording their activity. Trump wants to be an emperor & a tyrant. Socialists must fight back,” it continued.

A graphic attached to the DSA's tweet listed the same slogan as well as an additional one seeking to unite the anti-ICE and pro-Maduro sentiments of would-be protesters: “Hands Off Venezuela. Hands Off Our Cities.”

The NYC DSA said Thursday that it is “working with unions & groups across the city to rally” and called on election officials to “use their power to end U.S. imperialist actions & rein in ICE.”

The DSA’s Action Network page for “No War! No Kings! No ICE!” argued that “from DC and Minneapolis to Caracas and beyond, Trump is trampling our freedoms in a war to entrench rule by bullies for billionaires.”

The national DSA group also posted on Friday a video from a California branch of the DSA, whose speaker said this weekend they would be protesting against “everything the Trump Administration has done this week — this ranges from the illegal invasion of Venezuela to the murder of Renee Good.”

Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin released a video on Wednesday also seeming to connect U.S. efforts targeting Venezuelan drug gangs to the ICE shooting, saying that “they tell us they’re fighting ‘terrorist gangs abroad,’ but this is what state terrorism really looks like. An ICE agent just shot and killed an innocent woman in Minneapolis. … ICE out of our communities! Now.” Jodie Evans, the other co-founder of Code Pink, was married to Neville Singham in 2017.

Just the News reported this week that the DSA has been closely allied with Maduro for years, and is now leading protests in the U.S. against the communist dictator’s arrest by the United States as Maduro sits in a NYC jail cell.

A review by Just the News also found that many of the anti-ICE protests which quickly sprang up this week were organized and promoted by PSL with help from the People’s Forum, and with some participation from Code Pink. 

“The Trump Administration has started an illegal war against Venezuela. This is a nakedly imperialist war to install a US puppet government that will give Venezuela’s oil resources over to US corporations and to force US hegemony over Latin America,” the DSA event page says, adding that “an ICE agent opened fire on people peacefully protesting ICE raids in Minneapolis, murdering an innocent person, Renee Nicole Good. One day later, ICE shot two more people in Portland. DSA condemns this murder, these shootings, and demands the abolition of ICE, which terrorizes our neighborhoods and makes everyone, regardless of citizenship status, less safe.”

The NYC DSA chapter allied with the People’s Forum and other protest groups in launching the effort attacking U.S. foreign policy toward Latin America and Trump Administration efforts to crack down on illegal immigration. The DSA’s national organization tweeted on Friday that “we're gathering in over 35 cities across the country to demand an end to Trump's terror. No war for oil. Abolish ICE.” The post was retweeted by the Singham-linked PSL.

The DSA also shared a post from a local California branch who showed the protest was being coordinated with PSL, as well as with groups such as the Communist Party USA. The DSA national organization also listed a host of other co-sponsors for the pro-Maduro and anti-ICE protest efforts happening across the country.

Clumps of far left "resistance" groups singing from same choirbook

A handful of fringe left groups are parroting the blend of the Minnesota tragedy with an ICE agent shooting a woman and the capture and arrest of Maduro, for whom an indictment was first handed down in 2020. Some of these groups are directly funded by Singham:

• Our Time labels itself “a new organization building on the grassroots momentum of Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral campaign to deliver” on Mamdani’s campaign promises in NYC. It says on its website it is independent of the mayor but allied with his policies and perspective. 

• 50501 — which stands for “50 protests, 50 states, 1 movement” — is another protest organization and mobilization network that helps organize street demonstrations nationwide. Indivisible says that it “drives coordinated campaigns, powering the grassroots Indivisible movement to defeat the rightwing takeover of American government” and acknowledges that it “was founded in response to Trump’s election” as it claims that “an alliance of white nationalists and the ultra-rich have been actively working to further undermine democracy.”

• The Act Blue page for Target Majority NYC states that it is a “hybrid” group of the leftist Swing Left and Indivisible, with Swing Left saying that Target Majority “has built on our history of electoral and legislative fights and wins, to ground our work now in what it takes to beat back fascism.”

• Rise and Resist bills itself as NYC-based “NONVIOLENT direct action group committed to opposing, disrupting, and defeating any government act that threatens democracy, equality, and our civil liberties.”

• Brooklyn Resisters is a far left community organizing and protest group. Common Defense is a leftwing activist group which “organizes veterans and engages the military community to transform our society by advocating for progressive policies.”

• Indivisible Brooklyn said that “from MN [Minnesota] & Chicago to Caracas & NYC, the administration is trampling our freedoms to entrench a rule of bullies for billionaires. We must stand together against these criminal attacks on families both here and abroad. Rule by kings is over.”

Mamdani uses perch to attack both Maduro arrest and condemn ICE

Mamdani himself has been outspoken about his opposition to a “regime change” war in Venezuela, and he also quickly accused the ICE agent who shot Renee Good of being a “murderer.”

Quickly following the news of Maduro's arrest by U.S. special forces, Mamdani tweeted that “I was briefed this morning on the U.S. military capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, as well as their planned imprisonment in federal custody here in New York City. Unilaterally attacking a sovereign nation is an act of war and a violation of federal and international law.”

The democratic socialist added on X that “this blatant pursuit of regime change doesn’t just affect those abroad, it directly impacts New Yorkers, including tens of thousands of Venezuelans who call this city home” and that “my administration will continue to monitor the situation and issue relevant guidance.”

Similarly, in the wake of the Wednesday shooting by an ICE agent, Mamdani claimed on X that “this morning, an ICE agent murdered a woman in Minneapolis—only the latest horror in a year full of cruelty. As ICE attacks our neighbors across America, it is an attack on us all. New York stands with immigrants today, and every day that follows.”

“Ours is a city government that will stand with immigrants today and for everyday hereafter. And it’s also a city government that is going to follow the law and actually follow our sanctuary city policies,” Mamdani also said in a video posted this week. “Just to think about the family of that woman who was murdered, it is to understand just one glimpse into what has been a year of cruelty. … I’ve said it directly to the president … These ICE raids are cruel and inhumane, and they do nothing to actually serve the interest of public safety.”

Mamdani also went on MSNBC on Friday to talk with Jen Psaki, where he said that “I think that accountability has to be true for everyone. I think that has to be true for the ICE officer that we're speaking about.” The mayor also again said he told Trump that “I was in opposition” to “regime change” war.

DSA shares video adding support for Latin-American dictatorships

The DSA’s national organization on Thursday expanded their efforts to defend the Communist Cuban regime alongside its condemnation of the Maduro arrest, claiming that “it is egregious and brazenly illegal under domestic and international law that the Trump administration invaded and kidnapped Venezuela’s head of state, and now threatens to do the same to Cuba. These threats and lies against Cuba are the latest in the sordid history of imperial violence the U.S. has brought to Latin America.” The DSA added that “Cuba stands with Venezuela against US imperialist aggression” and that “it is up to the people of Cuba and Venezuela to decide how they are governed, not Marco Rubio.”

On Saturday, the DSA released a video from Fita Gonzalez, who the DSA described as “a militant of the Cumbe Nacional Afrovenezolano” in Venezuela and who has a long history of defending Maduro and the socialist revolution. In the video posted by DSA, Gonzalez said that “the youth of our people is going to crown the revolution, and for sure that we’re going to do so, but in every single territory of our continent of America, the youth of our generation will crown our revolutions… It’s time to defeat the empire.”

“I am a militant of the Afro Venezuelan Cumbe. They’re responsible for the LGTBQI Cumbe. We’ve been mobilized, the whole people of Venezuela, specially in Caracas, because of the kidnap of our president – legitimate president — Nicolas Maduro Moros,” Gonzalez also said, adding that “the awful, criminal, coward Yankee Empire bombed our city of Caracas.”

She specifically encouraged the DSA to keep up its protests, saying that “I want to invite you all comrades to keep up the solidarity, to keep up moving, to keep up protesting, to keep up demanding.”

Manolo De Los Santos, the director of the People’s Forum, tweeted Thursday that “Trump’s decision to move warships from Venezuela to Cuba’s coast is nothing but a desperate act of intimidation. He should know better: in 67 years of revolution, Cuba has already defeated a U.S. invasion, resisted decades of brutal sanctions & crushed endless regime-change plots.” She also referred to the U.S. as the "Yankee Empire."

If Singham responds to a subpoena and agrees to be interviewed or deposed, it is nearly certain that these controversies would be part of any future congressional questioning.