Congress and our political class have been letting 9/11 families down for 25 years

I was in my early 20s when I lost my father on Sept. 11, 2001. I have spent most of my adulthood without him or his guidance, the milestones we should have shared and the future our family expected to have together.

My father never got to meet his grandchildren. I am raising children who will never know him, but who have had to continuously absorb the horror of how he died, carrying the same sadness and injustice I have lived with for so long into another generation. His death left a hole from which we will never fully recover.

I share that not for sympathy, but because it is the lens that I cannot help but look through every year in late August and early September, when the anniversary coverage begins, and the politicians start booking their travel to New York.

This year, a few 9/11 families have publicly asked New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani not to attend today’s commemoration ceremony. I disagree. I have no issue with Mayor Mamdani being there. He was nine years old when the towers fell . Whatever one thinks of his politics today, he bears no responsibility for what happened that day, or throughout the 25 years of broken promises that have followed.

In fact, he is the only politician who has honored this anniversary appropriately, by providing long overdue truth about the air quality to survivors who have been fighting for it for so long.

I would ask that anyone reading this understand something: the families who’ve called for Mamdani to stay away speak for themselves. They do not speak for me, or for the many other 9/11 family members who see this anniversary, and this moment, very differently.

What I take issue with is the annual parade of career politicians who will be there. The people who have had real power for years and have done nothing meaningful for us with it, who will stand at that ceremony, be seen, be photographed and then vanish for the rest of the year.

These are the same people, in many cases, who welcomed Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman into the Oval Office despite both the 9/11 families’ lawsuit against the kingdom he rules and the U.S. intelligence community’s own assessment of his role in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. A clear slap in our faces and a signal to the world about how little accountability matters when the price is right.

The same political class has spent years blocking meaningful use and expansion of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act , which exists specifically so families like mine can pursue accountability against foreign sponsors of terror. The same Congress has let the American Victims of Terror Compensation Act sit untouched for two years since its introduction, without a hearing, a vote or an explanation to the families waiting on it.

This is not a complete list of the failures 9/11 families have experienced from politicians who claim to care about us, it is merely the tip of the iceberg. Over two decades later, the complete list is long and devastating, and is built almost entirely of roadblocks and non-answers from people who show up every Sept. 11 to tell us they will “never forget.”

I believe them, in a narrow sense. I don’t think they have forgotten. I think they have simply decided that remembering is more useful to them as a photo opportunity, rather than a professional or ethical obligation to those they have been elected to represent.

So on this 25th anniversary, I ask that we redirect some of the scrutiny. Not away from accountability, but toward those who have long held the power to deliver 9/11 families the justice we deserve yet haven’t.

A newly elected mayor who was a child when this happened is not who failed the 9/11 community. The failure belongs to the officials and legislators who have had the ability to pass Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act reforms, move the American Victims of Terror Compensation Act , fix compensation disparities, provide us with answers and reckon honestly with a Saudi relationship so many of us still find incomprehensible, based on what our families lost. They are the elected officials who have chosen, year after year, not to do any of those things.

I don’t say this to be cynical. I say it because after spending over half of my life fighting for accountability and answers, I am tired. I’m tired of the excuses and the non-answers and the broken promises. I’m tired of believing that our politicians will one day make us the priority.

The 25-year anniversary is a heartbreaking milestone, and it feels like exactly the right moment to stop being polite about all that we have had to endure. We have watched an appearance at a ceremony matter more to many of these people than the follow-through ever has. If that’s uncomfortable for some to hear, I’d suggest the discomfort is overdue.

To those career politicians in attendance today who are reading this, know that what would truly honor my father, and the thousands who were with him in the towers isn’t your presence at a ceremony. It’s what you do with the other 364 days of the year.

Kathleen Coppo Zapata lost her father Joseph Coppo in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.