New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani demanded President Trump end all ICE enforcement in the city after agents shot a criminal illegal immigrant during a targeted operation, even as federal officials pointed to sanctuary release policies and the suspect’s record.
Federal immigration agents wounded a 28-year-old driver identified as Oscar Belgal during a Thursday afternoon enforcement stop in New York City’s Marble Hill section, near 2 Marble Hill Avenue. Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said agents were running a targeted operation to take a person in a gray vehicle into custody when the vehicle moved forward and at least one ICE agent fired seven rounds, striking the driver in the neck below his left ear.
A 5-year-old boy police believed to be Belgal’s son was in the car. The child was later reported safe with a family member. Belgal was conscious, received medical attention, and was listed in stable condition at New York-Presbyterian Allen Hospital.
TIME reported that multiple 911 calls came in around 4 p.m. New York police arrived to find the injured man handcuffed and seated on the ground; officers immediately placed him in a police vehicle and gave aid. Tisch said plainclothes federal agents approached the driver’s side with a gun drawn and that police saw men in various clothes, including at least one carrying a long gun.
The Department of Homeland Security described the target as a “criminal illegal” immigrant from the Dominican Republic with a prior grand larceny conviction and multiple prior arrests for assault, robbery, drug possession, and weapons possession. DHS said police arrested him on Dec. 7, 2023, “but was released into the community a few days later by reckless Democrat sanctuary policies that put American lives at risk.”
Tisch laid out Belgal’s local record in plain terms: a 2023 robbery case in which he pleaded guilty to fourth-degree grand larceny and received five years probation, plus a 2025 criminal sale of a controlled substance case that remains pending. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said Belgal was “affiliated with a gang.” DHS tied him to the Trinitarios gang, which it said was involved in the shooting of an off-duty Customs and Border Protection officer last year.
Mullin said ICE believed the subject had knowledge regarding that CBP officer shooting and that agents had already tried and failed to detain him in September. DHS stated an ICE officer “discharged his weapon” and that “the incident remains under investigation.” Officers rendered aid, according to the department.
Mamdani moved fast in the opposite direction. At a Thursday evening press conference before protesters, the mayor called the episode “an unconscionable and incredibly serious situation” and said he had called the president.
"I have called the President; when we speak I will demand that he ends all ICE enforcement actions in our city. I will not stand by while ICE agents terrorize our communities."
He added that ICE “undermines public safety” and insisted there is “no explanation for federal officers firing this many rounds into a car that has a 5-year-old.” After a two-hour conversation with Trump and Mullin, Mamdani said he failed to negotiate the shooting victim’s release. The mayor has backed calls to abolish the agency. Readers tracking his tenure have already seen fierce fights over his Israel comments and related blowback, including coverage of Israeli criticism of his Oct. 7 remarks.
Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, issued a swift rebuke. She said New Yorkers have “witnessed far too many acts of violence by a rogue federal agency and untrained agents that operate with impunity” and demanded immediate answers from federal authorities. She also said she spoke with Trump and Mullin.
Rep. Ritchie Torres, who represents the Bronx, posted that “firing multiple rounds into a car with a child inside, on a busy residential street in the Bronx, is abhorrent and indefensible.” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called the shooting “deeply disturbing, especially amid reports that a child was in the car when shots were fired,” and urged DHS to release body camera footage and ensure independent investigations. Schumer has previously led legislative fights that temporarily blocked DHS funding.
Rep. Adriano Espaillat said ICE denied him and the victim’s family from visiting the injured man and that he met the 5-year-old son, whom he described as distraught after witnessing the event. The White House pointed reporters to the DHS statement attacking New York’s “sanctuary politicians.”
Mullin answered the mayor directly. He accused Mamdani of “inciting hostilities” and undermining ICE’s mission. At a Friday morning press conference, Mullin said ICE officers wore body cameras, footage exists, and “as the investigation moves forward, as I said, we’ll release the information.” He repeated the gang affiliation claim and the prior failed September detain attempt.
Mamdani’s broader record has kept him at the center of New York political storms, from quiet handling by national Democrats of his Israel controversy to repeated clashes with Jewish leaders. Those fights sit beside the same instinct on display here: pressure federal enforcement first, explain the suspect’s record later.
Tisch’s preliminary account remains the clearest public sequence from city police: targeted stop, vehicle movement, seven rounds, neck wound, child present, handcuffs already on when NYPD took over medical transport. DHS framed the same man as a repeat offender freed after a 2023 arrest under local sanctuary limits on cooperation with federal agents. Gothamist reporting cited in the same account found more than 8,800 ICE arrests, or nearly half of all ICE arrests in New York state during the second-term Trump administration, occurred in the city’s five boroughs.
National tallies cited from other outlets put more than 20 people shot in broader incidents involving federal immigration agents, with at least six killed, including three U.S. citizens named in those tallies. Local Democrats treated Thursday’s shooting as proof ICE should leave. Federal officials treated it as the predictable result of releasing a man with larceny, drug, assault, robbery, and weapons history back onto city streets.
Jewish organizations have separately pressed the mayor for clearer definitions and stronger plans on antisemitism, a debate that has run for weeks alongside his enforcement stance and that includes demands captured in reports on calls for a fresh antisemitism plan and his funding commitments that stopped short of a firm definition. The pattern is consistent: high-volume political attack on federal power, thinner focus on the criminal histories that brought agents to the curb.
Body camera footage has not been released. Custody status after hospital treatment was not settled in the initial statements. The precise characterization of the vehicle’s forward movement beyond Tisch’s description was not resolved. Mullin said the material will come out as the investigation proceeds.
Mamdani wanted a citywide ICE shutdown over one enforcement shooting. Federal officials answered with the suspect’s rap sheet, a sanctuary release date, a gang tie allegation, and a prior failed pickup. Taxpayers and lawful residents are left with the same choice the facts already frame: enforce the law against criminal illegal immigrants, or keep emptying the cuffs and blaming the officers who show up next.